


Congenital Nonsense

by ForNought



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Awkward first time sex, M/M, Stupid Boys, University AU, Unrequited Crush, getting over a non-relationship, kink meme fill, lots of reluctance to admit things like feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:40:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 56,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3631839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForNought/pseuds/ForNought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean finally decides it is high time to act upon some advice from Annie and confess to Marco. Annie's advice turns out to be terrible and Jean does not even want to look Marco in the eye, especially after he said that he did not want things to change between them. Cue Jean drowning his sorrows and meeting someone who is super-duper hot (hint, hint it's Eren Jaeger). Eren is a bit more full-on than expected but at least trying to avoid him takes Jean's mind off the whole Marco thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eggs

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt here: http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/8414.html?thread=7953886
> 
> As usual I took a lot of liberties with it.

Jean regretted that his first coherent thought was the fact that he did in fact like eggs. When Annie had barged into his room, mumbling under her breath about something or other, Jean really should have focused on her saying that Jean had a friend in the kitchen who had asked to borrow some of her eggs. If he had paid more attention to the friend part he would have tried harder to work out why he would have a friend in the house at such a dreadful hour.

Eren Jaeger was standing at the cooker and scrambling some eggs in a frying pan, as though the house Annie invited Jean to share had not come with a microwave. Jean wriggled his toes and wished he was wearing some socks. There had been a damp patch of carpet on the stairs on the way down to the kitchen and in the best case scenario it would have been some spilt tea. Annie didn't drink tea, and she certainly wasn't holding a mug now, but there were three others renting the house and perhaps they had been kind enough to spill an unnamed substance on the carpet and neglected to clean up after themselves. Jean could count on them for that much. Jean almost always fell asleep with socks on his feet and he never woke up wearing them. It was clearly some sort of conspiracy to make him marginally uncomfortable.

The house - and also Jean's housemates - had clearly stepped up their game here because he was awake enough to work out that Eren Jaeger was the friend Annie mentioned. Eren Jaeger was supposed to be his 'friend' that Annie wanted him to take responsibility for. But in real life they weren't friends, unless Eren being that guy he occasionally saw hanging around with Armin counted as being a friend, and it was weird seeing him in a shirt that would probably look more familiar crumpled up on Jean's bedroom floor along with the rest of his clothes.

"Good morning," Eren said brightly as he glanced over his shoulder.

Jean only grunted back in reply and apparently that was greeting enough. He looked over at Annie. She was smirking, as usual, and leaning against the fridge with her arms folded as she watched Eren. She wasn't going to be any help at all.

Jean ended up eating the eggs. Annie ate eggs too, sitting opposite Jean at the table caked in porridge and coffee rings, while her eyes flitted between Jean and Eren significantly. Jean decided against looking anywhere near her as he wondered where she got the idea that he didn't like eggs from. She might have been a time-traveller. It might have been because she had seen this exact moment as Jean chewed the same mouthful of oddly grey scrambled egg. Jean didn't like these eggs, at all. He felt a little bit sick but spitting the rubbery, tasteless lumps onto his plate might be rude.

"Are the eggs okay?" Jean only looked up at Eren and took too long thinking of any words to say that weren't "this is the worst thing I have ever had in my mouth."

"This is delicious," Annie said, chewing with her mouth open and raising her eyebrows at Jean. He hummed in agreement and maybe this was Annie being nice.

"That's good then. I don't cook very often at home."

"I don't believe that," Annie said seriously. "Surely you must be studying to be a chef."

Eren wrinkled his nose and made protesting noises. "Not quite. A nurse."

"Wow," Annie said, nodding. "Did you hear that, Jean? He's a nurse, he's a good cook and from what I heard last night I am assuming his skills aren't limited to that."

"...Sorry."

"No, no. Don't be sorry. As long as you two boys had fun last night I don't mind the fact that I couldn't get a wink of sleep, or that I couldn't even spend that time revising for the tests I have on Monday."

"Annie," Jean said. His voice was thin and scratchy. He cleared his throat and kept his eyes on her. He couldn't really afford to look at Eren at that moment.

"I really am sorry," Eren mumbled.

"I said it's fine."

The thing was, Annie could say it was fine as much as she wanted to. Saying it was fine did not change the fact that all of the evil in Annie's tiny body could concentrate itself into the worst weeks of Jean's life. One year of accidentally getting on her bad side was warning enough for Jean to tread carefully but already he had stomped all over Annie's delicate disposition and he was soon to regret it. Rather, he was soon to regret it more than he already regretted sitting at the kitchen table with both Eren and Annie and eating something that had no business calling itself scrambled egg.

Last year, just two weeks after he had started living with Annie, he had similarly made a mistake without realising it. Only two weeks into September he had asked Annie if maybe she could keep all over her period supplies in her bedroom. The most minor consequence was his clothes draws being stocked with boxes of tampons and a laminated set of instructions of where he could shove them if he had such a problem. The worst part was having Annie appear whenever Jean was trying to talk to anyone and promptly revealing all of Jean's faults within the space of three minutes. The three minute limit came with most of Annie's revenge so Jean was surprised to have been allowed much more than five minutes before she actively started to ruin Jean's life.

"Right," Jean grunted. Damage control was imminent. "I have a revision group to go to soon."

"Really?" Annie asked.

"Oh. Yeah, I should probably leave," Eren agreed. "I have to be at the hospital in a few hours and they won't be too impressed if I don't change before my shift starts."

Jean nodded stiffly and pushed his plate away on the table. There were only crumbs of the rubbery eggs left and he was going to successfully remove Eren from the house without Annie making things worse for him. Jean would not be too impressed if Eren went anywhere whilst still wearing his shirt though and he was wordless as he escorted Eren back up the stairs to his room.

When he was sure that Eren was going to get changed, Jean jogged down the stairs and threw himself onto the kitchen sink, filling up a murky pint glass and gulping down the contents, filling it up and gulping it down until his belly was fit to burst and he was struggling to contain his sour water-belches. Annie was still sitting at the kitchen table, picking flakes of black from her nails.

" I will give you another chance because he was sort of cute."

"You think he's cute?" Jean asked, pausing between words to let a bubble of gas pass.

Annie hummed. "He looks a damn-sight better than you do in the mornings."

Right.

"Does he look better than me at night?"

"What, like last night?" Jean nodded and Annie shrugged. "I have never seen you try to get with anybody before. On your first try you somehow managed to get a guy like that. Congratulations."

Jean dropped his head. So that basically meant that he had looked even better last night. He refilled the glass again. Maybe if he drank enough water now he could drown and not have to go on living with Annie ruining his hopes like this.

"Wait. This is all your fault anyway."

"My fault? Does that mean I get special treatment at the wedding?"

"Wedding?" Jean groaned weakly. He staggered over to the table and sank into the seat. The tabletop was sticky but it was the best pillow he was going to get under the circumstances. "If it wasn't for you I would be fine, you know. I wouldn't have gone out and done something stupid."

"He can't be that stupid. He is doing a nursing degree."

Jean blinked at Annie over the barrier of his forearms. She wasn't smiling but he did eventually get the joke. He groaned louder and his head thunked loudly on the table. It was easier to let the headache press against the edges of his skull than to think about how adhesive the table was.

It was quiet. The wonderful peace of silence. That was what Jean liked about living here. Annie could drop a conversation whenever it suited her and there was something about her attitude that kept their other housemates at bay. It was annoying when Jean was actually trying to talk to Annie about something, but when all he wanted was to fall asleep and not have to pay attention to anything she was perfect.

"I'm back," Eren announced breathlessly. So much for that moment of perfection. Jean slowly lifted his head and rubbed the patch that may or may not have been glued to the table with a dubious substance. Sharp lines creased Eren's T-shirt and there was a damp patch at the collar. That was all Jean wanted to focus on because otherwise he would be concentrating on how Eren actually looked, and... Jean wasn't in the mood to tackle that particular train of thought.

Jean stood, slowly so as not to end up sloshing his bodily fluids about the place. Sitting was one thing but when standing he had already discovered the slightest tilt was dangerous.

"I didn't use your toothbrush or anything," Eren said quickly. Too quickly and Jean wondered why he would mention such a thing without even being prompted. He just nodded and ignored Annie's snort from behind him. Jean struggled to react to Eren adding, "I just sort of... toothpaste and my finger. I didn't really think this whole thing through."

"Okay," he said.

"I'll probably feel a lot better when I get home. I'll be able to have a shower too and that ought to make me feel better," Eren said quietly as he followed Jean to the door. The lock was stiff and Jean's coordination wasn't quite how he wanted it to be so opening the door took a few tries.

Jean drummed his fingers on the door and cleared his throat. He could feel Annie's eyes on him from where she was leaning in the kitchen doorway. Eren was still standing inside the house and this was weird. Apparently getting to the hospital was no longer urgent.

"So, this was nice," Eren said.

Jean wanted to disagree, though Eren was probably talking more about last night. Last night was okay. This morning was weird and awkward and not nice at all. Whichever Eren was talking about, Jean nodded.

"I'll see you soon?"

"Yeah, sure."

Eren rocked back in his heels. Maybe he was a bit reluctant to do this whole walk of shame thing. But that wasn't really Jean's problem. He could feel guilty about it later after he had taken some paracetamol and slept off his impending hangover.

"Um, bye then?" Jean offered.

Eren had an odd look on his face and he slowly reached his arms out. He kept moving until he was pressed against Jean's chest and Jean was trapped within the arms he had not quite realised were reaching out for him. Right. Jean's arms were useless hanging at his sides so it only made sense to open the palms of his hands against Eren's back and hope not to press Eren's face to firmly into his chest. Eren squeezed his arms momentarily and Jean's arms provided no resistance to him slipping away to stand on the otherside of the threshold.

"Bye," Eren said with a small wave.

"Yup. See you around."

"Okay," Eren said. He took careful strides along the path. He stopped and turned and offered another wave and a less reserved smile. Loud enough for his voice to carry back to the front door, Eren said, "Goodbye then."

Eren's voice had been loud enough to carry through the hallway if Annie's scoff from the kitchen doorway was anything to go by. Jean could only bring himself to raise his hand in a wave and nod and desperately hope Eren wouldn't try to drag this out any longer than it needed to be.

When Eren finally did leave, Jean slammed the front door shut and dropped his head into his hands as a smirking Annie plonked a glass of water and a pack of paracetamol on the floor beside him.


	2. Bananas

Confessing his feelings to Marco was the single worst thing Jean had ever done. It was worse than the time in year three when he tricked chubby-fisted, snotty-nosed Thomas Wagner into eating a worm. It was worse than the time he smashed a brand new bottle of his mother's favourite perfume when he was twelve, even considering he worsened it by attempting to make some more by mixing the scents from the other ornate glass bottles on her dressing table. It was worse than the time he tried to prank Franz Kefka by deleting all the work he had done in one History lesson only to find out the idiot hadn't saved his coursework even once. It was even worse than the time he tried talking to a girl with shiny black hair only to accidentally elbow the guy who interrupted them in the face and even his escape was impeded by him clumsily stepping on both of their feet.

Jean would not have done such a stupid thing if Annie hadn't have rolled her eyes, just like she always did, and kicked his chair on her way to the fridge, just like she always did, as she told him to just say something. If Annie hadn't made the consequences seem so trivial he would not have decided to give it a go. With a handful of words she had dissolved all of the reservations Jean had about attempting to change things. The signs were all there and the friendship Jean shared with Marco was clearly leading up to a relationship that was more physical and more romantic. Even if Marco refused, which he surely wouldn't, they were close enough that it wouldn't change things between them for the worse.

Except Marco had frowned and his face had hardened but Jean had kept going, kept telling him how he felt. And then Marco had pulled his mouth into a smile, blinked too slowly, and placed a light hand on Jean's arm. The tilt of his head and the crease in his eyebrows were all too clear at indicating what was to come next, but Jean let the words come.

"I'm sorry if that is the impression I gave to you. I honestly had no idea that this is how you felt about me. I will try harder not to let the confusion arise again, so forgive me, but I do not feel the same way. I care for you as one of my best friends, but I am afraid that is all that it is. I hope this does not change things between us."

Things had already changed though.

Jean was stupid enough to ascribe his own meaning to the shared glances and suppressed laughter and the firm weight of a warm hand on his shoulder and the press of Marco's body against Jeans as his voice, low, instructed Jean how best to take a shot at a too-serious game of mini-golf and invitations to just sleep in Marco's bed because Jean couldn't make his own way home in that state and fingers fumbling for the same fluttering sheets of paper the day they met. How had Jean got things so wrong when instances like that were so few and far between?

While Jean waited for his drink he could not help but watch a girl in the pub who was perhaps as stupid as he was. He didn't have the clearest of views but every now and then she would be at the furthest corner of the pool table and Jean could see the eager expression on her face. Soon she would spend days on end trying to have an ordinary conversation only to find things as simple as sitting with the person who was kindly bland in their rejection. Jean shut his eyes and tilted his head away. His head was filled with fuzz and he didn't need the feeling to get denser with his pity for this girl.

There was no point in blaming Annie for the fact that he could no longer so much as look at Marco without bitter regret creeping into his mouth. But Jean was determined to drink enough to forget sensible thoughts like that. He was already halfway there.

The barmaid slid three shots in front of Jean: 50p each during Happy Hour. That would do nicely for the next minute or so. Only fifty seven more to make the happiness last the whole hour.

Jean downed one shot, the burn at the back of his throat quickly lighting the backs of his eyes. When he slammed the glass down he could not help but notice the absence of a shot. The third glass returned, sliding across the dark wood of the bar to clink against the glass that was still full. Jean's eyes followed the fingers that had pushed it along, over the bump of the wrist, continuing past the bent elbow and across the pale blue cotton of the T-shirt, and it was too much. A person had stolen one of Jean's shots. It wasn't fair. Especially not when Jean raised his eyes to meet the green, green eyes staring up at him. This was too much because nobody had any right to steal anything from Jean whilst looking so good.

It wasn't fair that somebody had clearly never experienced a single zit or blemish first-hand would steal one of Jean's 50p shots whilst simultaneously reminding him of the decade of greasy skin and spots Jean hoped he had just left behind. This absolutely was not allowed but even in this state Jean knew he would sound stupid saying that. Not that he could remember why it was not allowed when the press of teeth in a plump lower lip spread the pooled residue of Jean's stolen shot.

There was something familiar about this guy but none of it remained when he was on his tiptoes and his mouth was next to Jean's ear and saying, "My name is Eren."

His voice tickled and Jean shivered against the urge to clamp his shoulder against his ear until his neck felt safe from the warm pulses of breath. Eren pulled back and his name was Eren and he had really nice skin and his hand was warm on Jean's arm and it was very nice to meet Eren.

Jean managed to reply with his own name and Eren nodded and offered to buy Jean a drink. "It would only be polite," Eren said, folding his arms on the bar and raising one hand to catch the barmaid's attention.

 

 

 

Eren stripped off his T-shirt and all of a sudden he was very, very naked. It seemed odd because all Jean had seen was the slow undulation of Eren's torso as he peeled the T-shirt away from his skin to reveal the beaten bronze beneath. Jean could see how some people might think this was sexy in the undeniably, outrageously sexy sort of way. He was all precious-metal skin and molten relief that cooled when his final garment fell from his fingertips and he was frowning at Jean.

"Why aren't you naked?"

Jean didn't have a clue why he was not naked. He was close to working out that the stifling heat and cloying sweatiness of his skin might have had something to do with the fact he was wearing far too many layers. Why wasn't he naked? Being naked was the only thing that would make sense in this situation and Jean was uselessly swaddled in every item of clothing he owned.

The only thing to do was to take off his clothes, except Jean's fingers were doing their job and still the buttons refused to be popped through the holes to free him. He tried harder, wriggling the cotton of his shirt and plucking at the buttons but still nothing. And then there were hands around his, soft and warm and nudging his useless fingers aside to effortlessly unfasten the shirt buttons. Jean unhelpfully lifted his hands to his buttons again, not intending to actually assist with unbuttoning so much as he intended to touch the soft skin again.

He wanted to let Eren know just how great his skin was. If his perfect complexion was not enough his hands were soft enough to warrant a comment. He regretted opening his mouth though.

Jean burped. If somebody was keeping a tally of all the stupid things Jean had done this moment would have secured itself a place on the list, probably uncomfortably nestled between elbowing his Year Five teacher in the boob and wetting himself on a school trip in Year Two. How he could he burp in someone's face? At a time like this? He was entirely inexperienced but Jean could guess that a good response to a monument of desire touching him was absolutely not to burp right in his face.

"I... I'm sorry," Jean tried, ineffectually wafting the air between them and blurring Eren's wrinkled nose and bitten lips.

This was terrible. Jean still wasn't naked and he just burped in the face of the first person to actually show him any interest in all twenty years of his life.

But it might not be the worst thing. Eren's mouth had spread out into a wide grin and his green, green eyes twinkling with the reflection of the streetlamps just outside the bedroom window. Jean would have preferred a back bedroom, the ones at the back of the house were bigger and lacked the ambience of boy-racers careening down the street with too-bright headlights and distorted sub-woofers howling. Jean was glad of a room at the front of the house now though. He had switched on the bedroom light only to have Eren slam his hand down on Jean's fingers and the light switch to douse them in darkness once more. At least with the street lamps which blared through the flimsy net curtains most nights, Jean could see someone so pretty - even if he was laughing at Jean.

"I really am sorry. That was an accident." Jean's voice squeaked at the low huff of air, Eren chuckling softly. It wasn't really fair but he gulped down his stupidity to admit, "I've never done this before."

"The burping?" Eren asked through his divine smile. He was really too much. He unfastened the final button of Jean's shirt and slid the cotton off his shoulders. "I'm sure that happens to everybody."

"No, not the burping." Eren's hands stilled at that, the shirt bunched around Jean's wrists. it was almost like holding hands. Jean was probably the one that was too much, thinking about things like this. He swallowed again, wondered if all the shots he had downed that night were ready to make a reappearance, and said, "The whole one night stand thing. Or sex in general. I've never... had sex before."

Eren blinked. His smile only faltered for a second and then he said, "That's fine. We can just do a little bit."

"A little bit?"

Eren dipped his head and nodded at their feet as he shoved the shirt right off, only pausing to tut when the cuff caught on Jean's watch. "Yes. We could do a little bit... of sex. Or none at all if that would be better."

That probably would not be better. Not at this point. Not when no sex at all at this point would mean asking Eren to put all of his clothes back on again. That would probably be a bit rude. And it also seemed a bit pointless. He had come this far and this was something to get excited about. Even if the options were a little bit of sex or no sex, this was exciting because sex was part of the offer and Jean was not about to waste his one opportunity - it was still an opportunity even though he had burped in this guy's face and that fact alone was as good a sign as any that Jean should not waste this.

"No, no," Jean muttered hurriedly. "A little bit will be good."

And suddenly Eren's smile was all twinkle and it wasn't drenched by the street lamp that snuffed out stars and his lips were hesitant on Jean's as his fingers fumbled with the button on Jean's chinos. He pulled away, uncertain and there was no way Jean would say no at this point. So it was up to Jean to close the space, pausing at the spark of stubble scratch between them, before pressing more insistently into the kiss.

Eren gasped quietly and brought his fingers up to Jean's neck and broke the kiss to guide the way back to the bed. This was the first time Jean had been lying beneath another person, eyes wrenching themselves open to see what the hands on him were doing. He had never imagined this was what it would look like, rather this had not been what he had hoped for either. But this was not so bad, even as Eren broke the kiss to sit back on Jean's thighs.

"Do you have any condoms in your..." Eren's question trailed off as he looked at the bare walls at the head of the bed. Jean reasoned he was looking for a bedside table but that was not the sort of luxury Jean could afford. Then again he didn't even have any condoms that would go in the accumulated nonsense of a bedside table. There was probably space for some, if he wedged a box in his chest of draws alongside the three boxes of Annie's tampons that had set up a colony. He had never thought of something like this happening. Not even in his less PG-rated fantasies had he imagined things would go this far very soon after confessing his undying love to Marco. Here he was, with somebody who was not Marco at all and, well, it might have been sensible to buy some just in case.

"I don't have any condoms," Jean mumbled, oddly feeling warmer again despite the fact he was wearing less clothing.

Eren nodded though. "Good job I came prepared."

As Eren scrambled off Jean's lab he managed to peel away Jean's chinos and briefs. He was very efficient. Jean leaned up to watch as Eren rooted through the piles of clothes on the floor until he found his own pair of jeans and retrieved a condom from the pocket. Maybe he should have left the light on after all.

Jean squirmed away from Eren's return, the sudden grip of his hand around Jean's already erect penis. He gasped and glared at the window in an attempt to control his blush - at least that was the idea until Eren was rolling the condom onto him. This was nothing like the Sex Education lesson back in secondary school where the entire class of awkwardly giggling teenagers squirmed and winced as they took turns pinching the tip of their condoms before rolling them down onto polystyrene penises. Probably because Jean could feel this and he could only watch the smooth roll of latex in awe - this must have been as good as things get.

But then things did get even better - as in Eren licked from the base to the tip of Jean's cock and then closed his mouth around it. Jean could eventually recognise a blowjob when he was a minute and a half into receiving one. It was completely different to how he thought it would feel, too overwhelmed by the fact that this was happening to pay attention to what was going on between Jean's dick and Eren's mouth.

This whole sex thing was turning out to be great. It was a shame Marco wasn't interested in doing this with Jean because he was missing out on a lot. Then again it was stupid of Jean to be thinking about Marco at a time like this. Whether or not Marco wanted to do this sort of thing was irrelevant when Eren was hollowing his cheeks and taking Jean deeper. The little puffs of air that disturbed his pubic hair were an odd sensation, cold despite the heat that prickled over the rest of Jean's skin.

His hips were slow as they moved against the sensation, off the rhythm of Eren pulling all the way off to gulp down air before diving back to suck Jean down. Eren's harsh exhaling through his nose was still cool even though his mouth was hot enough to send Jean's temperature rocketing higher. Jean's muscles wound themselves further and this would be it. It would not be long before the tension reached its peak and he would hopefully have the best orgasm of his life and it would be enough to distract Jean from watching the wetness of Eren's eyes darken the lashes there and - wow this guy was really going for it.

And then he gagged. And Jean supposed this wasn't entirely as sexy as he thought it would be. Not that the fact that Eren had wanted Jean's dick in his mouth at all wasn't the epitome of sexiness. Eren had pulled off and clamped a hand over his mouth and screwed shut his eyes.

"Are you okay?" Jean managed to ask after engaging his brain.

Eren nodded slowly, carefully, before rubbing his face with tensed hands. "Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. I'm okay. Don't worry I wasn't going to be sick on you or anything."

Jean had not been worried about that at all but it was good to know that it was not a possibility at this point. Or now he had reason to hope that it would not be a possibility. Eren rubbed at the sockets of his eyes with his wrists and coughed a few times. Jean supposed it made sense that porn would generally skirt over things like this. Delays like this would probably spoil the mood and the industry would be plagued with poor sales. Not that Eren was at fault for stopping. It was just a bit of a strange pause. And the vague threat of being vomited on was not something that enhanced the experience for Jean.

Eren sniffed loudly as he wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Yeah, there was a reason Jean had never seen this in anything he had downloaded from the internet.

"Is it alright if I just use my hands for a bit?" Eren asked.

"Yes, of course. Don't... don't worry about it."

Eren's lips tugged into a quiet smile as he shuffled closer on his knees and delicately wrapped his fingers around Jean's cock. He was still rock hard and though his pending orgasm had receded it was still not far off.

In fact Jean didn't have the opportunity to see whether Eren would decide to use his mouth again because he came with a slew of ragged groans and an actual ache from the tightness of his abdominal muscles. Jean's chest heaved as he came down from what was arguably the coolest thing that had ever happened to him. Removing condoms involved a lot more throat clearing than Jean had assumed if Eren was anything to go by. He wondered whether this was some sort of delayed reaction and the threat of being vomited on was a very real one. Eren managed to get through the task of tying off the condom without being sick and Jean hoped it was a sign that Eren wouldn't be sick at all because Jean was tired and fuzzy and he had only been able to come up with a used condom as a substitute for a sick bag if the need for one arose.

Eren glanced around for a moment before clearing his throat again and asking, "Do you have a bin."

"No. Just," Jean waved one hand vaguely in the air and continued, "That will do."

"You want me to put this on the floor?"

"If you'd like."

Eren crawled off the side of the bed and Jean rolled on his side to watch Eren clear a space in the carpeting of clothing at the edge of the floor and very daintily place the condom wrapper and then the condom itself on top of it in the cleared space. Jean would probably forget it was there before the time to attempt to clean came around. When Eren awkwardly perched on the edge of the bed, Jean said, "That was cool. Is it your turn now?"

Eren shrugged but he did shuffle closer on the bed.

"I only had the one condom, so, um..."

Jean sat up and reached for the hardness Eren had politely been shielding from view. He gasped as Jean's fingers wrapped around his erection . It was weird, touching another penis. His hand kept up a pace that had Eren squirming and fisting at the bed sheets. This was much stranger than doing it to himself, mostly because he had no idea how close Eren was to coming or how whether he should speed up or slow down or change the angle of his wrist. There was a lot to think about and he was actually beginning to tire himself which was unexpected. If Jean's wrist ached and his hand was cramping up already he could totally understand how that could feel a lot worse on someone's mouth. Eren's head dropped onto Jean's shoulder and this was kind of cool. The way he shuddered and jolted was kind of cool too, even if it only meant Eren's orgasm took them both by surprise.

It was sort of nice, like, kissing and having a little bit of sex. Jean didn't really know how to mention that without reaffirming the fact that he was a sexual novice, so he let Eren pull him down to the mattress. Eren still tasted faintly of that odd flavouring of artificial banana. It tasted nothing like real banana but for some reason people agreed to call this same taste banana in its many incarnations. Those pick and mix sweets Jean got away with nicking because the mean old woman at the corner shop didn't bother training her beady eyes on the bananas and the shrimps, and now Eren's mouth. Keeping a flavoured condom to hand was the sort of genius Jean could only hope to reach one day, but for now he could marvel at how forward thinking Eren was and how these soft kisses were nostalgic enough for Jean to grow comfortable with the thought that these were the perfect kisses to fall asleep to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah wow so that's what happened the night before chapter one how wild and crazy


	3. Burger

Jean could have done with having an extended weekend. He was not much of a drinker but Annie had three bottles of Cava and a season of Game of Thrones that she insisted she could not watch alone. it only made sense to relieve her of some of the burden and pretend to be able to follow the story when his head was light and fizzy from the wine. Unfortunately Jean had a lecture at eight on Monday morning and it was the first time he was forced to spend time with Marco since he idiotically took Annie's advice. The wine was probably Annie's approximation of an apology. It was well received at the time but it was Monday and Jean had to deal with the consequences.

There was no way Jean was going to stay behind for the tutorial session.

The problem was that Jean was already at the lecture and he didn't particularly want to be here. Not when Marco was _trying_ with him Marco had gone through all the usual small talk - It's too early for this, haha! How was your weekend? Do you think we will get to leave early today? - and Jean might have been able to get away with a series of grunts because it was Monday morning and he was allowed to be tired. He wasn't certain that he was allowed to be upset about anything.

Jean didn't have to struggle through too much more conversation because Marco was very serious about taking detailed notes during every lecture. Jean hunched over some loose pages of lined paper he had rescued from the bottom of his backpack and managed to take down a few words here and there but it probably wasn't anything important anyway. If he was really desperate he could always beg someone else for their notes or pretend he was absent in the hopes that he could get the lecturer's slideshow emailed to him.

When the end of the lecture came around Jean was struck with the realisation that he was once again about to plummet to the doom known as 'Attempting to Converse Normally with Marco'. He did not see it going well but he was too confused about what to do next to refuse Armin tugging on the collar of his jacket to summon him to lunch.

It was an expectedly difficult affair. Marco was all sympathetic frowns and understanding nods and geyser giggles in all the right places. Jean couldn't respond to anything Armin was saying because he was struggling to maintain his sanity by picking at the lettuce that had fallen out of his burger.

"How soon should Eren expect to hear from you?"

The words barely registered so it took a beat too long for Jean to realise that Armin had been asking him. He glanced up from the oddly flimsy cardboard box on the table and blinked at Armin. He had thought finding that bus ticket on the floor of the lecture hall indicated his luck was on the turn. To get a burger _and_ fries for a little over a pound without having to shell out for bus fare that was around four times as much was surely the start of great things to come. He should have known finding something so lucky was only going to fall into his lap for the purpose of softening this moment. Either Armin was incredibly obtuse or he calculated most of his questions to cause the most pain possible for Jean.

Jean cleared his throat awkwardly. Of course that stupid bus ticket hadn't been lucky. His throat was painfully dry and swallowing only made it obvious how necessary a drink was. "I don't really know," he managed to say. He tried clearing his throat again to ask, "Why?"

"He hasn't been asking, but  we - Mikasa and I - we thought we might need some indication. You know what they say, 'fore-warned is fore-armed'."

"I don't- Why would you two need to know?"

"Eren's a bit excitable, isn't he," Armin replied fondly. Marco's eyebrows were still far closer to his hairline than they should be and it was nice to know that after breaking someone's heart, Marco was the type of person to let a friend flounder and drown at the hands of Armin Arlert.

Armin chewed the end of a single fry thoughtfully and added, "You definitely have his number, right? It's just that his schedule isn't really that flexible at the moment and he will need a week or so for notice. As much as I hate to hear the gory details I am glad that he can have something like that with you."

Jean wondered what _that_ possibly was but he was in no condition to ponder that when he was already struggling to drag himself into a lifeboat alongside all the others who had fallen victim to Armin's harmless act. He was definitely alone in this with Marco looking the way he did - sort of smiling but surprised all the same, as though he had any right to be surprised at this point. Unless of course he did still have the right and he would forgive Jean for this Eren thing as easily as Jean would forgive him for the heart-break thing.

Jean sort of hummed non-comittally and ignored the way Armin's nose wrinkled and his eyes crinkled with something akin to delight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter length will vary wildly and also I think I miscounted how many chapters I planned.


	4. Cuppa

**Hi Jean. Hope you are not too busy. I was wondering if you would like to meet up this weekend :)**

 

The text was not from a contact already saved to Jean's phone but it didn't need to be. There was only one person who was apparently in the process of strong-arming their way into Jean's life and acting like the sort of fixture that should be familiarity by now. Despite the fact that this was a clumsy and obvious transition, Jean was minutely afraid that if it started to work he wouldn't notice at all.

For now, Jean had Eren's number. He didn't have it before, but he had it now which had the potential to mean so many things. Jean could delete the text. He could have deleted the text the second he saw that it was not from one of his contacts. He hadn't deleted it just yet though. He re-read the words a few times, unfortunately hearing every syllable in Eren's stupid voice.

Halfway through the fourth read-through, Jean's phone darkened to the point that made it difficult to read the rest. By the time his brain had filled in the blanks for him the screen was off and his phone was locked. He turned it back on and read the text again. Maybe he could send an innocuous reply. Something generic about not being able to handle the workload of university might do the trick. Then again, entering into a dialogue with Eren might not have been the right way to go. Another alternative was to just delete it like he wanted to. Eren had survived this long without contact and honestly it had been Jean's first instinct. But Jean did not have a clue how close Eren was to his limit. Jean's thumb moved away from the options button and even that made him feel marginally safer from Eren's reputation.

He hadn't known too much about Eren Jaeger per se, but Jean had seen him around and he had heard the name every now and then. There hadn't been enough exposure that Jean recalled the dozens of rumours of scraps whilst mostly drunk and entirely drawn in by wide eyes and hints of touches. Maybe if the circles they ran in were closer together Jean would have been more aware that Eren was a hot-headed trouble-maker who was constantly going at somebody for something.

"You're really thinking that one over," Marco said, smirking over the rim of his Star Wars mug.

Despite attempting to recover from soul-destroying heart-break, it still pissed Jean off to no end that Marco's favourite mug was a Star Wars mug when he had still never seen the films. This was all part of the recovery. Jean needed to nitpick for things about Marco that pissed him off because otherwise he would still be thinking the mug was stupid in a cute way and he would still be looking forward to opening Marco's eyes to an Iconic film series. The recovery must have been working because rather than considering how much one on one time in the dark six films would grant him, Jean was wondering how much Marco would care that he was speaking to Eren Jaeger's next murder victim. The other ones had never been proven to have existed in the first place but Eren was suspiciously aggressive. Jean was the idiot who forgot that long enough to allow Eren in the vicinity of his privates.

"Do you want some help with that?" Marco suggested, helpfully, while holding his hand out. Jean was not sure what part of this situation indicated he was going to pass the phone over but if he really did become a victim it might have been helpful for the detectives to have someone know of interactions like these.

Jean did not answer. Jean did not need to answer because Marco was being incredibly helpful today and he took Jean's phone quickly. He scrunched his face up the same way he had when Annie had reluctantly shown him a picture of her niece. "It's great that you are putting yourself out there like this. What are you going to do?"

Jean blinked dumbly - he knew he did something as simple as blinking dumbly because he was a big dumb idiot and today was not his day. "What am I going to do?" He asked.

"This weekend. With Eren," Marco prompted as he passed back Jean's phone.

Nothing. Jean wasn't going to do anything with Eren at the weekend because Eren was irrelevant. Aside from the threat to his life, Jean had no room to care about Eren. Eren was just some guy but Marco was Marco. Marco was the one - he was Jean's one and only and he just needed to look at the situation in the right way and realise that.

Jean just had to be patient.

Maybe the recovery would take a while longer.

Jean glanced down at the text message and shrugged. He said, "I'm not sure yet."

He didn't reply to the message. It was worth saving the number though, just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one. I probably could have merged this chapter and the previous one but I am already confused enough as it is with the numbering and maybe I would somehow lose a chapter. Anyway chapter five is a nice length so there is that to look forward to. You know. If you enjoy that kind of thing.


	5. Chicken Goujons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised I should probably aim for some sort of chapter summary because I actually hate reading fics where there are no summaries for anything. I am just very bad at summarising so unhelpful hints are the best you are going to get. I think this one is longer than the previous two and I hope I can get the next chapter up in time!

  **Armin told me you guys had an assignment due in this week. Sorry for bothering you when you were busy. I hope it went well.**

 

**If you maybe wanted to meet up this week that would be cool.**

Jean actually replied to that one. He wasn't entirely sure why but he doubted the messages would dry up anytime soon no matter what he did. Eren was having plenty of fun having one-sided conversations with Jean's inbox. Jean would have given up well before this point, he was certain of that. Most people would have got the message by now.

Then again Jean was self-aware enough to realise he was still nursing his own vain hope. Most people would have had a realisation about that and given up but Jean hadn't. It was different though. He and Marco were close friends and there was an obvious connection there. Eren on the other hand was struggling to realise that he had just been a one-time thing.

 

Jean thought it might have been weird to meet Eren beforehand to ensure they arrived at the same time. He had been right about that. Eren's constant chatter was not so much natural exuberance than it seemed to be nervous babble. That had put Jean even more on edge than before. He had agreed to meet just because he thought this would have been okay. This should have been a lot easier than the alternative of watching whatever affront-to-cinema Marco had discovered for the week. Jean should have taken his chances with sub-par sound mixing and a sieve for a plot.

Eren looked apologetic as they stood outside the house and he pressed his phone to his ear. Knocking on the door seemed like the most sensible option but he wasn't about to question Eren now. He doubted he could handle Eren stuttering and blithering his way through some non-explanation or other.

The inside of the house sounded nice. Rather, it sounded lively and maybe some liveliness and joviality might get Eren to relax and Jean could regret this a little bit less than he already was.

"We're outside now," Eren said, voice raised a pitch too high and then he nodded. "Yes. We got a taxi. No we're not- I didn't- Yes I am. Look, can you just let us-"

"So impatient!" The front door to the house was yanked open roughly and the voice that accompanied it would probably bother the neighbours. It was definitely the kind of voice to bother Jean's parents and he hoped everyone in the surrounding properties was either out of their houses or very hard of hearing. "Come inside, children. We've all been waiting for you."

"Whatever you say," Eren grinned as he slid his phone into his pocket. He quickly ducked under the arm that was intended to pull him in for a hug and while Reiner was busy sending his reproach over his shoulder, Jean managed to slip through the threshold and into the three square feet of carpeted room directly inside. It wasn't the most convenient or comfortable of layouts but it was not like the layout of this house should be a particular bother to Jean. He flinched when the door swung shut and he wondered how that managed to surprise him seeing as how he could not have been further than a foot away from it.

Jean had never formally met Reiner before but he had certainly seen him around the campus and avoided eye contact just in case the rumours were true. The bone-crushing hug Reiner trapped both Jean and Eren into within seconds of noticing them did nothing to help Jean judge the legitimacy of the rumours.

"It's great to see you both!"

 Jean felt the rumble of words that came through Reiner's thick chest reverberate in his skull and he was probably going to choke to death on the world's supply of Lynx Chocolate. If Jean bothered to keep track of all the times his head had cracked and fissured in the aftermath of regret, coming to this party would be the only occasion he would be able to recall. This was a terrible Idea and there was no way anything about this was great - not Reiner, akin to a stranger, squeezing the breath from his lungs and swaying him from side to side; not the sounds of snickering somewhere behind him; certainly not the timid touch to his arm administered by Eren as Reiner squeezed tighter and pressed Eren's shoulder more sharply against Jean's sternum.

"Jean, right?" Reiner said when he finally relinquished his hold, allowed Jean to burst out of one grip and stumble unfortunately into Eren's looser support. "Been pre-drinking, have we? I never would have guessed. Between Annie and Eren I thought I had a good read on you, but it is always good to learn more about a new friend."

Jean wasn't sure about new friends but the rumours he heard had never touched upon Reiner murdering people under the guise of affection. He really had to stop using Connie as his most reliable source.

"I haven't been drinking," Jean muttered as he extricated himself from Eren and straightened out his shirt.

"You haven't? Well we should remedy that," Reiner said, his voice booming much too loudly in the entryway. Jean cast a pleading look to where Annie was sitting on the stairs but she only shrugged and took maintained uncomfortable eye contact with him as she sucked on her straw. Jean quickly looked away and unfortunately he only had the other two options of Eren and Reiner who were discussing the drinks available. It shouldn't have been that interesting a conversation but Eren's brow was furrowed in concentration and he nodded eagerly when Reiner said, "If pop isn't your style we have non-carbonated stuff too."

"I can't even believe you would even have _that_ many drinks laid out," Eren said.

"Non-believers and others alike, follow me!" Reiner announced. Annie jumped up from her perch and gestured for Jean to catch up to Reiner and Eren as they disappeared into the door adjacent to the stairs.

Annie gave him a shove, her palm flat against his back but Jean didn't quite trip over. He regained his footing in time to be introduced to a group of girls who regarded him warily until Reiner introduced them to Eren but Jean didn't have the chance to see how much they could warm up to him when Reiner's hand was around his arm and yanking him over to the next group of people. This went on for quite some time and Jean saw absolutely no reason to have to endure telling fourteen strangers his name and the fact that he had come here with Eren. For all the people who were missed out on Reiner's interior tour, Jean heard Annie vaguely surmising before she reappeared to give Jean another shove and propel him to the next awkward encounter.

He was actually thirsty by this point.

He had no idea why he had ever fostered any feelings of goodwill towards Annie. So what if getting on her bad side would earn him a trip to hell for as long as she deigned necessary? Getting on her good side seemed to have quite the same effect.

By the time the four of them reached the kitchen, Eren was very pink and Jean wondered how often Reiner allowed his guests to reach a stage of intense dehydration. At least, that was what Jean dearly hoped Eren's problem was. The odd meekness was nothing like the Eren Jaeger who was spoken about with raised eyebrows and hushed tones. This was nothing like the Eren Jaeger who had stolen one of Jean's shots with enough grins and soft touches for Jean to take him home. It would be better if the averted gaze and the restrained smiles were all imagined by Jean.

He was honestly sick of Armin mentioning Eren every minute and it took everything he had not to ask why Armin didn't date Eren if it bothered him so much. Armin would probably reply to Eren's texts and volunteer to spend time with him all without the forfeit of having to spend time with the person who rejected him. Jean's half-hearted effort to show Marco that there was nothing to worry about was not something that Eren should have been happy about.

Reiner pressed drinks into their hands. Eren had a water. It seemed odd after how every interlude of introductions was filled with Reiner blithering on about how impressive the drinks haul had been today.

"What if I didn't want this?"

Reiner winked as if that answered anything.  Jean squinted at the plastic cup and tried to get a whiff of the drink. Not that he would know if he could smell anything dodgy. Reiner smacked Jean's shoulder and pouted as though he was the one whose hand had just been slopped with the drink.

"That's rude."

Jean rolled his eyes and avoided the odd look Eren was giving him as he took a teeny-tiny sip. It was okay. It was mostly cola anyway and Jean was thirsty. Reiner gave himself far too much credit though.

"If there's one thing I know, it's how people want their drinks."

Annie scoffed and there was something challenging about the look she sent Reiner's way. Jean really could not tell whose side she was on but for that single moment it sort of felt like she was on his side That wasn't so bad. Reiner lost whatever mental game he had been playing with Annie and he herded everyone out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Eren waited for him just within the room, an expectant look thrown over his shoulder.

"Are we just going to hang with," a quick sweep of the room, "Armin or something?"

"We don't have to." Eren's eyes were on Armin who was probably trying his hardest to ignore the eyes on him. Since Jean and Eren had re-entered the room, Armin had thrown himself more exuberantly into the conversation he was having with the tallest person in the world. Or at least the tallest person Jean recalled being in the presence of. There didn't appear to be much room on the sofa where they were seated and that did not bother Armin at all. Eren looked back to him and smiled. "We can just sit somewhere else and chat, if you'd like."

Jean absolutely would not like that, but he didn't really have too many options.

~

Somehow, Jean had managed to escape. He was not sure how but he had successfully evaded  both Eren's company and the drinks that Reiner insisted on plying them with. He was not normally one for drinking but he wanted to drink something a little bit more interesting water and a little bit less interesting than raspberry-ripple-ade. He had actually tried the cloudy pink drink quite soon after slipping away from Eren but it was an acquired taste that Jean had yet to acquire. He stuck to the cans of Carlsberg - vaguely familiar because he did remember the adverts but if this was the best lager in the world he was not certain he was much of a lager drinking man.

He was on his second can of Carlsberg and relishing the uncomfortable taste of freedom along with the chill on his skin as he crouched under the kitchen window. The back garden was not much more than a patio surrounded by shrubs. It had probably seen a few more barbeques than Jean and Annie's house. At least, Jean was assuming the very D.I.Y. looking set up in the corner was where disposable barbeques were positioned when lit. There were charred little piles and even a couple of crumpled foil trays and Jean was getting hungry.

He should have brought some of the chicken goujons that were cooling on the table behind the stacked cans of lager.

He very slowly stood, stretched his legs, and tried not to be too miffed about the fact he kicked over his half-empty can. He picked it up, thought maybe he would be a good citizen and attempt to recycle when he went back inside in search of sustenance.

He was inspecting a handful of partially burnt goujons when he heard a roar that was far too familiar. A sleepy-looking girl who had been resting her head on the table squinted up at Jean accusingly as though he was close enough to have made the sound. He tried not to return a glare as he scoffed the most edible goujon and dropped the rest back onto the baking tray. He chewed quickly as he made his way to the living room.

Of course it was Eren.

It was remarkably similar to the first time Jean had encountered Eren in their first year. Scrappy and loud, he had been squaring up to a man twice his size in the student union bar. He had launched himself at the man who had apparently been bothering Mikasa, or Armin, or both, and had been dragged from the fray with a black eye and three broken fingers. Even back then, Jean had thought Eren was lucky to only have incurred that much damage from someone whose forearms were as thick as Eren's thighs - not that Jean had possessed the information to compare that long ago. This guy was smaller than the one in the student union bar two years ago but Eren seemed a lot less eager to get physical. Instead he was shouting very loudly and Jean hoped the words remained as inscrutable gibberish.

Some people around the room were hiding smirks and giggles behind their hands but others were a lot more blatant about the fact they were laughing at him. It might not have been too late for Jean to make his escape. He shuffled one foot backwards and he knocked his heel against the skirting board. There must have been some cosmic vendetta being enacted upon him because Armin, sitting against the far wall and scowling at everything, locked eyes with Jean.

He had been caught and he wished he had kept up the awkward staring contest with the girl on the kitchen table.

Armin looked ready to say something when Eren yelled, "Why can't you understand that I'm not interested? Now that I've said it loudly enough I hope it gets through that thick skull of yours!"

Armin was definitely going to say something and Jean really did not want to be around when he did. The irony wasn't lost on him. He already understood well enough that Marco was not interested in him, at least not romantically, but there was still some hope as long as Jean found a way to position himself as a good match-up. Eren, on the other hand, was nowhere near understanding even that much about himself.

Jean didn't really want to have to yell the facts in Eren's face. Doing that seemed dangerous.

 

He was even less inclined to do so when his hiding place in the back garden was discovered by Reiner who had a grumpy Eren in tow.

"I believe this is yours," Reiner smirked as he shoved Eren forwards. Eren stumbled a step and scowled at the weeds pushing through the paving stones. Nobody had mentioned the guy from the living room and a part of Jean wondered whether his remains were being dissolved in a bath of chemicals. It was a possibility. The upstairs bathroom was apparently out of bounds for some reason and that was as good an answer as any.

"That's not- He's not _mine_."

"I'm returning him to you anyway," Reiner said a bit too sincerely.

"Thanks, I guess."

Eren's scowl had devolved into a pout that was close to disarming Jean. He was much too sharp for that though. He shuffled a few inches to the side and this new patch of slab was very cold and by the time Eren was crouching next to him he realised he should rethink his opinion of his own wits.

"I'll be back if I need any _medical attention_ ," Reiner said with a wink. Eren responded by sticking his fingers up at Reiner's cackling retreat. Jean didn't miss the fact that Eren also responded by dampening the grin that was spreading across his face.

It was weird. Surely the guy in the living room was just the starter and Jean would be the main course - the wrath of Eren Jaeger would be much more dangerous after he had the taste of blood nudging him closer to some frenzy that Jean wouldn't see the end of. But Eren was smiling dopily and he looked like the Eren that Jean met a few nights before. If he was drunk enough and heartbroken enough, Jean would be about ready to take Eren home all over again.

"They're usually better than this."

"Hm?"

"The parties," Eren clarified quietly. "Or maybe it was okay for you. You disappeared a while ago so you could have had a better time than me."

"Not really."

"Okay. The next one will be better though, I promise. Or maybe we should do something a bit more sophisticated than Reiner's table of booze. We could go out for dinner instead. Like, at a restaurant or something. That would be cool, right?"

Jean shrugged. They were close enough that Eren could feel that and Jean wished that weren't the case.

"It's cold out here. How come you're out here anyway?" Eren asked. Jean shrugged again and Jean was certain that Eren was just ignoring his lack of conversation. "I suppose it is nice to get some fresh air every now and then."

"Hm."

"It really helps you think sometimes, doesn't it?"

"I have to go."

That shut Eren up. He looked askance at Jean before asking the floor, "What do you mean you have to go?"

"I don't really know anybody here and it is getting late."

It was already late when they arrived but rather than point that out, Eren said, "Do you want some company?"

"No, not really."

"Are you sure?" A pause far too small for Jean to actually reply and maybe the distance between them reduced. "We could pick up where we left off last time."

Jean meeting Eren's eyes was a total accident. Fresh air was not helping Jean to think clearly at all because he was struggling against the hopeful expression on Eren's face, the press of teeth in his lower lip that reminded Jean of the other night. Which was a terrible memory because Jean definitely told Eren he was a virgin but it didn't actually mean anything. Eren looked like the type to think that losing virginity was something important but it wasn't. Especially not that time with Eren. That definitely did not count because it was not even proper sex.

Jean was struggling but he could certainly rationalise saying no.

"I am sure. Thanks for the offer and everything, but, I'll see you around or something."


	6. Popcorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean absolutely does not ask Eren out on a date

**Did you get home safely?**

Jean considered not replying the that text but he had the sneaking suspicion that Eren would only knock down his door just to ascertain Jean's safety. It was a plausible risk because Eren knew where Jean lived and he probably thought that was an acceptable course of action after not having sex and then not having any proper conversations since then.

There was no way he wanted to risk Eren's initiative making him think it was okay to invite himself over.

_Haha yeah. u still at the party?_

**Yeah i'm sleeping over here so i'm staying safe**

Jean had already revealed that he was fine and Eren had shared the same thing about himself so there was really no reason for Jean to reply to that. It would be weird to say anything to that. it was fine to ignore that text. He went to sleep, totally alone and totally happy with that fact.

 

Marco's grin was far too wide when they met up the next day. Jean was very suspicious of why Marco would be looking that way, especially when they had agreed to meet up to give each other tips on the presentations they would undoubtedly have to give in their Tuesday lecture. But Jean didn't dwell too long on that when he had spent far too long providing grunts and half-replies to Armin. It was far too early to be getting interrogated about all things Eren.

He offered a wave to Marco who bypassed them to find a chair to drag over to the corner of the library they managed to occupy. The computers that lined wall around half of the library were nearly always full but after one serendipitous moment last year the three of them had managed to set up camp with enough desk space to feel truly blessed as well as being perfectly positioned to cooperate on essays. These days it took waking up early but apparently waking up early was beneath Prince Marco who offered a cheery smile and a flask of lukewarm tea as though that made everything better.

Honestly, Marco never woke up early unless they had a lecture so Jean really should not have been surprised that he'd had to grapple with a mild hangover to deal with Armin unallied. He accepted the tea Marco offered, told him it was perfect even though the way Marco brewed tea was oddly unpalatable, and searched his pockets for his memory stick.

At least this was one way to get off the topic Armin was so enamoured with.

Jean didn't see how Armin was so invested in something that, insignificant as it was, had no bearing on Armin's life whatsoever. So what if Jean accidentally had some... thing with Eren entirely by accident? They were grown men so what may or may not have happened was nobody else's business. Even if Armin had been at the same party as them and had seen them together a few times, and had noticed that they arrived together, and he was curious as to why Jean disappeared for a good portion of the night, and he mostly wanted to know why Jean left alone.

None of his business! Not an atom of relevance to Armin's life, so why did he care?

Why didn't he take up mantle of doing and being whatever with Eren?

That was a completely valid question that Jean was mostly glad that he hadn't had time to ask in the bare seconds before Marco joined them.

Jean got on with loading his PowerPoint presentation, conscious of the fact he had spent far too long on the backgrounds and slide transitions considering the lack of actual content. It looked cool though.

"Um," Marco rubbed his nose and exchanged a look with Armin before settling on, "It definitely covers the main points about what a contract is."

"Maybe look at it again with more of a focus on the supply-chain," Armin suggested.

Jean groaned and absolutely did not hurt himself by dropping his head onto the desk. "Fuck it. This'll do. I don't even care anymore."

"It's not bad," Marco says.

"You're right. I'd probably use a word stronger than that."

Jean groaned again. It didn't help him feel any closer to wanting to actually improve the presentation but it accurately communicated his frustration and discontent with a great many things.

"Buck up," Armin added with a pat on Jean's shoulder. "At least you'll have one income to rely on."

Jean lifted his head enough to glare at Armin who looked oddly cheerful considering his damning assessment of Jean's greatest efforts. "What?"

"Well a nurse's wage isn't a lot to brag about but I'm sure the two of you will manage."

Jean's soulful wailing was not quite enough to drown out Marco asking for clarification on who was a nurse. By the time he ran out of air Jean decided he would be happy for everything to end right at that moment so he didn't have to see Marco's encouraging smile and thumbs-up. Ugh.

"Maybe you'd be better off supporting him then," Jean grumbled. He half-hoped that  he had been quiet about that but he saw Marco's smile dip and he heard Armin scoff in what Jean could only imagine to be some form of discontent that Jean would be unable to comprehend.

"Can you try to be serious for once," Armin chastised. "I know you are still in that school-mode of thinking that not trying makes you cool, and you will be lucky to get a 2:2 but at least with things that affect other people you really could put some effort in."

Jean sat up, set his jaw, and he didn't even have to prompt Saint Armin for any clarification. Maybe Armin wasn't the type to discuss things too deeply with Eren but there was no reason for Armin to save everything up for some half-baked public lecture that left Jean looking like some sort of inconsiderate idiot. Jean knew there was a reason he had always harboured feelings of vague suspicion towards Armin, only he wished he had the sense to ponder the suspicion more objectively long before Armin inhaled deeply and spouted out all the opinions he had been keeping quiet before now.

"Joking aside, he really likes you, Jean. I've known him my whole life and he has never been like this about somebody else so you really do have to consider how your half-arsed attitude affects other people. He's known you all of five minutes but he would do _anything_ for you - frankly that pisses me off to no end - and all he gets back from you is," Words appeared to escape Armin for a moment, but he didn't let that disrupt his flow when he used the pause to gesture at Jean with mild disgust and decided on, " _this_. He's going to get hurt at some point, I know I can't stop that from happening, but if he is going to get hurt by you the least you can do is make it quick and painless. Surely even you know what it's like to have those sorts of feelings go unreciprocated."

 Jean waited for three seconds before he realised that was the end of it. It was a shame because the least Armin could have done was metamorphisise into some ferocious beast who would physically tear Jean limb from limb to properly end the pain of knowing too many people had heard Armin's rant.

Marco was doing a terrible job of pretending he hadn't heard and muttered to himself as he searched through his bag for a text book. In some alternate reality that might have been the mark of a good friend but Jean was struggling to hold himself together. He didn't even need to contend with  ferocious monsters tearing him apart because just seeing Marco's dedication to ignoring Armin's words was enough that Jean had to hold his breath to prevent his limbs rattling free of their joints.

Jean sniffed loudly.

He received the message loud and clear. He understood as explicitly as was possible.

Jean did not doubt for a second that Armin knew just how well Jean could relate to having feelings go unreciprocated. This, along with many other instances, must have been tactical in some way or other because Armin never said this much about anything unrelated to engineering when it was just the two of them. Maybe Armin and Marco had been in cahoots this whole time and they were getting less and less delicate about dropping hints to Jean that his feelings were unwanted. There was something suspiciously well-timed - or poorly-timed from how Jean saw things - to these conversations. For someone who was so emphatic about not wanting to see a friend get hurt, Armin was readily sacrificing Eren for reasons that would probably appal Jean on a day when he wasn't already brimming with humiliation.

Eren's weird attraction to Jean was a burden that Jean did not have the time nor energy to carry, but how did Marco feel. Aside from the obvious evasion of the subject since so kindly rejecting Jean's feelings, Jean didn't have too much of an idea about where Marco really stood.

Because maybe there was a chance that the friendship could alter in minute ways until it would be simpler to call it something else. Although it was probably worse that Jean was still nursing that hope because the reason Marco was so intent on getting involved was more and more unlikely to be because he was keen on letting nature take its course without any forced intervention.

Yes, yes, Jean already understood. He knew already. Of course he could not help but hope. Hoping was much better than moping around. Hoping was much better than breaking down in the fucking university library because Marco would not be interested. He would never be interested. He'd said all he had wanted to last Thursday and all that was left was for Jean to stop feeling like this and leave no opening for such a thing to be addressed again. 

"I am serious," Jean said. He cleared his throat. The gruffness was surely all that would remain of his stupid feelings - at least for now. He understood well enough so he only had to lie to let Marco feel okay. "I just wasn't feeling well last night. I didn't want him to have to look after me all night."

Armin sighed, "He's a nurse, Jean, I don't think-"

"I was going to text him later, but fine. I'll do it now."

It didn't mean a thing that Marco had stopped murmuring paragraphs from the text book. It didn't mean a thing that Marco had looked up for the first time to pay attention.

Jean quickly typed out a text, showed it to Armin for a moment. He had all the approval he was going to get before he sent the text. The time on Jean's phone did not have a chance to tick over to the next minute before the reply came.

**sounds great. I havent been to the cinema in ages. I'll meet you at the clock at half five?**

"What did he say?" Armin asked.

"Yeah. We're meeting at half past five," Jean said. He sent as nonchalant a reply as he could manage but it was hard not to be excited when Marco was honestly smiling the way he used to. So this was it. This was how he could make Marco happy. For all his lecturing it had made Armin quite unhappy.

 

 

Jean arrived at the clock at quarter past five. Arriving first would at least make it look like he was putting in some effort. Or so Jean had thought. He realised he would need to find another way to appear at least half-decent as a human being when he glimpsed Eren leaning against the graffitied shutters of the old Pound Shop as he frowned down at his phone.

Eren looked good. Objectively speaking. Jean could not think of an instance when Eren had not looked good and when he had been getting ready, Annie had felt the need to repeat her sentiment about Eren being far too attractive for Jean. It was good for his humility, he supposed, but it didn't particularly make him feel any closer to making things up to Eren.

Jean was sure he would think of something eventually. Maybe he could marry Eren and adopt half a dozen babies - maybe that would convince Marco that Jean had moved past this like a rational human being and maybe that would be a way to make it up to Eren. Of course Jean cold not think of any way to _actually_ move on like a rational human being but maybe Jean's idiocy could make two people sort of happy with the circumstances. Pleasing that many people at once would certainly be a first for Jean.

Eren noticed Jean's approach long before Jean was ready to be noticed and this definitely counted as the first time his presence alone had made someone react like that. Eren's hand stopped before is became a wave and he dipped his head just enough to eclipse his smile from Jean until he was an arm's length away. Eren looked up. He didn't look quite as happy as he had before and it was stupid for Jean to care. Or it was stupid for him to be bothered.

Jean should have been glad that the immensity of Eren's smile - the straining rising of his cheeks and the relaxed slope of his shoulders and the softening of Eren's knuckles as his hands slid into the pockets of his jeans and the small rock forwards - from a distance had just been a trick of the light because this was still Jean leading Eren on. Nothing was going to come from this except for reassuring Marco that Jean was able to think of him as nothing other than a friend. The whole marriage and adoption thing was just the back-up plan after all.

"You're early," Jean noted casually.

"So are you," Eren said. He shrugged. Like he was playing this casual game too.

"But you were very early. I was supposed to be here first so that I could think of a very charming way to make you swoon."

Eren very nearly smiled. But he didn't. Maybe Jean wouldn't have to manufacture a way for this to be awful and uncomfortable, but if this naturally turned out to be a horrible evening he would have to think of a new back up plan.

"You'll still be counting on that happening anyway though, won't you," Eren suggested a little bit too wryly. Before Jean to think of anything witty, let alone witty enough to retort with, Eren clapped his hands together and said, "Seeing as we're here early, shall we go?"

"Uh, yeah," Jean said eloquently. Eren might have smiled at that but he was already leading the way. No matter what this was, Jean didn't want Eren to smile because Jean was stupid.

"What are we going to see?"

"I don't know," Jean said very suavely and not at all awkwardly as he fell into step beside Eren. Eren momentarily walked closer to him to avoid a pedestrian coming towards them and in an instant he was far away enough to make conversation seem strange. Eren didn't seem to agree though because he seemed fine raising his voice over the distance between them.

"Are we going to decide when we get there?"

"I suppose so."

"Oh good. I sort of already know what I want to see but it's fine if you'd rather see something else."

"No, it's okay," Jean said. Surely the high street should have been this bustling and busy at almost twenty past five. The shops should all be closing soon and to think that this many people had waited until now to go shopping just seemed ridiculous. It did give Jean a chance to walk a bit closer to Eren to encourage a more normal speaking volume. "If you want to see a film already that makes it easier. What do you want to see?"

"The Book of Life."

"What's that?"

"A film."

Jean watched Eren for a good few beats of his heart but there were no signs of anything other than neutrality. Even Jean wasn't inexperienced enough to ignore how being cryptically coy could be a gentle tease. He had also known Eren long enough to decide quite firmly that he was very coquettish. Eren had definitely been like that from the start; his brand of flirting was very obvious - not that Jean could even pretend to be an expert in the matter -  but if their first actual conversation had been anything other than the prelude to a sort-of-supposed-to-be-one-night-stand Jean would have been a lot more confused about everything.

He managed to be confused anyway.

He really thought Eren would be thinking of this as a date. Even Jean was aware that this could technically be construed as a date and that was why he had been trying his hardest not to refer to it as such. As well as pelting Jean with insults about his supposedly bad dress sense, Annie had spent far too long needling him for details about what would happen on the date, emphasising the word with a weighty tone and repeating it in every possible sentence until Jean had shut the front door to the house in her face as he was on his way to catch the bus.

When they got to the cinema, Eren held the door open for Jean and absently searched his pockets whilst squinting at the board with screening information on it.

"I'll pay," Jean said quickly.

Eren only looked taken aback for a second. He shrugged, said okay and offered to buy the popcorn.

The queue to the refreshments counter was much longer than the queue to buy tickets. There was much more time for Jean to wonder how close was too close to stand and ponder whether it really affected anything. Unlike on the walk from the main square of the town centre to the cinema Eren was voluntarily standing very close to Jean, close enough for Eren's shoulder to brush Jean's as he stood on tiptoes and squinted over the heads of people before them in the queue.

"Do you need glasses?" Jean asked

Eren dropped down to his heels and spared Jean a disaffected glance. "I don't know. Probably."

"When I was younger I had to go to the opticians because I kept getting these migraines. They would suddenly start and I couldn't see and sometimes my nose would bleed too, and I fainted at school a couple of times. "

"Did  going to the opticians help?"

"I can't really remember. I think the migraines just went away by themselves."

Eren looked sceptical but rather than say something with the weight of having medical knowledge, Eren said, "When I was a kid they thought I had hearing problems. I had to keep going to see a specialist and I had to match up different beeps with some peg-people on a board. I could hear just fine though. Maybe I was faking or something."

 "It's weird hearing other people's weird medical stuff from when they were kids, right?"

"Not really," Eren said flippantly. "Hopefully that is going to be my job soon."

"Oh, right," Jean said. He didn't have the chance to maybe formulate an apology before Eren was talking again.

"What kind of popcorn do you want?"

"Salty, I suppose."

"Cool," Eren nodded. "I'll get sweet."

"We can get sweet if that's what you want."

"No, we can get separate bags. I thinks it's better if we both get what we want."

Jean didn't know what he was supposed to say to that, if anything. It was just popcorn. It didn't even matter.

It had to matter to some extent. It wasn't just the popcorn. Eren was never contrary. In the time it took for them to find their seats and wait through the adverts and trailers and previews, Jean remembered that he really didn't know Eren that well.

He wasn't sure what he had been expecting.

Maybe he had thought that under the cloistered cover of darkness Eren could snatch glances of Jean, study him in profile and pretend the moments into nothingness if he got caught. Jean kept an eye out and wondered whether he should say anything when the time came. The time never came, so Jean needn't have worried about it. Eren's eyes were fixed firmly to the screen and maybe this was a good idea after all.

Eren had been engrossed enough in the film to freeze his face in awe and thaw out for fearful suspense and breathless, barely there chuckles at jokes that went right over Jean's head. He almost cried too. There was no way that the loud sniff could have indicated anything other than that when Jean spied the tight stiffness of Eren's fingers as he clutched the bag of popcorn into his chest and his unblinking eyes a wavering shine beneath the steeple of his brows.

Jean didn't really even get what there was to cry about. He doubted very much that this had ever been intended to be a kids film because the story was too complex for Jean to attempt to follow. Maybe somebody died, but then lots of people had died prior to and over the course of the film. It was a struggle to know who he was supposed to be empathising with, but at least Eren enjoyed it. Suggesting the cinema had been laziness on Jean's part but at least it was a sort of okay way to kill time.

Eren stretched his arms above his head when they got outside, blinking away the dazing dusk. Jean was having the same problem with the contrasting brightness so he absolutely did not notice the arching of Eren's spine and the contented little whine before he flopped his arms down at his sides.

"Do you want to get something to eat?"

"Hm?"

"T- It's, uh, t-tea time."

"What is it? Nearly eight o'clock?"

"I guess so." It wasn't as warm as it had been earlier now that evening was starting to settle. The cooling of the sun gave way to a more autumnal breeze so Jean had plenty of reasons to put his hands in his pockets and never move them from there ever again. Not even to check the time on his phone.

"It's a bit late to be eating."

"If you're not hungry that's fine too. We can just...go."

"We can get something light, I suppose."

'Something light' was a cone of chips settled on a wall between them. The radiating warmth of the chips next to his thigh was a constant reminder of the torture of having to sit on the freezing bricks of the wall Eren had deemed best to sit on. The breeze was definitely more of a bluster too. It was freezing. It was much too cold and Jean was too tired to pretend otherwise. The thing was that he was starving. He couldn't remember eating anything since yesterday. He had eaten nothing aside from a few handfuls of popcorn that he swiftly gave up on when he realised he was eating salted popcorn but he had neglected to even consider a drink.  These chips were much too salty but Jean's hunger was winning out. He could deal with Saharan thirst in return for something to line his stomach with.

He barely registered the scalding heat of potato as he swallowed the chips down without even chewing. Eren was working through the small bag much more slowly, deeply considering which chip to pick up next and then chewing methodically in between snippets of this thoughts on the film. Jean didn't listen too closely over the sound of his own rapid shovelling and gulping. At least he hummed in all the right places when the chips were finished and he had picked the last vestiges of potato from the sodden greaseproof sheet on the inside of the paper.

"What did you think of the film?"

Jean balked. He supposed the question would have had to come up at some point. Unfortunately he had paid scant attention to anything so he was struggling to even pretend to have an opinion. "It was okay," He said non-committally. "It was a good choice."

"I'm glad you liked it."

"Yeah, it was cool."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Saturday somewhere in the world, right? Maybe. I am going to be terrible when it comes to updating, so apologies for that. But we are almost half way and Jean has apparently found some fresh, new ways of being awkward.  
> The Book of Life was a better film than Jean thought it was but when I saw it I was paying attention - haha. They went to see that film because it sort of fits in with the timeline of the story that I totally forgot to establish. Just so you know this started like Mid-Octoberish but we are going to bypass Halloween because I really don't care for Halloween. maybe it is already November in this chapter because it was quite a warm Autumn/winter in 2014.  
> Also for clarification - texts Jean receives are bold and texts he sends are italic.


	7. Soup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean's life is over and a certain someone comes to the rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have mentioned this before but just to refresh - texts jean receives are bold and the ones he sends are italic.

Armin did come in handy for some things. He was a bit of a teacher's pet but despite the image he had taken great pains to create he had something of a skewed moral compass - at least that was what Jean decided. He was a bit of a strange young man, he would often talk about things that went right over Jean's head without even being too complicated for the general laymen, but there were occasions when it was ideal to have him around.

One such occasion was Jean blithely searching through every pocket of his jeans, his jacket, his bags and even the vaguer pockets of his mind for his memory stick. It was strange to be realising the transience of months of work. It was only three quarters of the way through the first semester of the year so there were only three burgeoning assignments and a lot of historical work that had disappeared.

"That old chestnut, eh? You've lost your memory stick?" The always gregarious Mr Smith repeated dryly.

"He really has, sir," Armin said quickly. "Just the other day we were reviewing each other's presentations and Jean's was very informative."

"Really?"

"That's right. It was almost as good as mine." Jean could only stare at the side of Armin's head in amazement. There was a certain type of person that could get away with saying things like that and Jean knew he certainly wasn't of that ilk. Armin, on the other hand, very probably was. There was a smattering of snickering throughout the room but the ever shameless Armin was steadily staring up at their lecturer. Even Mr Smith's face registered mild surprise, the corners of his lips upturned despite himself as he turned his measured gaze on Jean.

"Yeah," Jean mumbled. "It was almost as good as Armin's."

A peal of laughter was shared by the whole class and at least Jean was allowed some reprieve. Aside from the fact that he was basically screwed until he found the memory stick or the world came to an end, meaning university work present or otherwise would be useless.

All day Jean wracked his brain but he had no idea where he could have misplaced it. He had a sliver of hope that maybe he had left it plugged into his laptop or it was camouflaged on the floor of his room. By the time he had returned home and searched his room top to bottom the sliver of hope had evaporated to nothingness, much like Jean's hopes for anything else in life.

There was a light knock on his door and before Jean had time to extricate him from weeks of unwashed clothes, Annie had barged in and plonked herself onto Jean's bed.

"I saw you at the uni earlier."

"Okay," Jean said. He waited for some elaboration but Annie didn't provide it willingly. "I didn't see you."

"Funny, that. Because I even called out to you but you ignored me."

"Sorry. I didn't realise."

"I could have guessed that."

"I had a lot on my mind. Or I still do really."

Annie narrowed her eyes. "If this is about your life being over-"

"My life _is_ over," Jean groaned.

"You literally say that every day. In fact you said it just yesterday when you noticed somebody else wearing the same shoes as you, like why does that even matter? Who even notices someone wearing the same shoes?"

"That was bad but this time my life is literally over," Jean mumbled, wounded. He pretended to fold the three T-shirts on his lap and added, "All the work I have done since... I don't know, like four or five years ago is gone. Like what if I get accused of plagiarism or there is some horrible bug in the university computers and all my work gets wiped from the systems and I have to resubmit everything but I can't because my memory stick is gone?"

Annie blinked a little owlishly down at him from where she had languidly stretched out on Jean's bed. "You have quite the imagination," She said.

"I don't really have much else. I can give my presentation next week but I don't want to do it again. I could barely be bothered to make the first one and what about all the progress I had made with my assignments that I need to submit in like a few weeks?"

"I don't know what to tell you," Annie announced airily.

"Thanks for your help."

"If it's gone, it's gone."

"What am I supposed to-"

"Not my problem. I remember you told me your life was over because I tried to help you once, so I promised myself I would never help you again."

"Oh my god, Annie!"

She looked far too smug stretched out on Jean's bed, waving her hand carelessly in the air. "If you're meant to get that work back, it will come back. I think you should forget about it until next week. Until then come to my room and watch Black Sails with me."

Jean gave up on pretending to fold his clothes and scowled at Annie from his pool of tangled, dirty clothes. How had he not realised his life was a mess until now?

"Haven't we finished watching that yet?"

"That was season one. Season two is so much better."

"Are you sure about that?" Jean asked flatly, "I mean, I get that you're totally into that kind of stuff but I think we all clearly understand that pirates like beating each other up and having boobs out everywhere."

Somehow Jean ended up in Annie's bed, blankly staring at the screen on her desk from amidst a nest of blankets from his own bed and hers. They hadn't technically had a conversation since the previous afternoon and he was aware that in the hours since resigning to the ruin of his life and now he had nodded off a few times, and Annie probably had too. He suspected that even if he hadn't fallen asleep he wouldn't have had much an idea of what was happening on the screen of Annie's laptop. It was a bit of a difficult story to follow and he hadn't even been distracted by the boobs. He was more curious as to why Annie kept making him watch such boobtastic programmes. That, and he was trying to recall whether boobs had anything to do with him losing his memory stick. They certainly weren't jogging his memory so maybe boobs were too divergent of a thought.

Annie nudged him quickly, mumbled, "This bit, this bit," and Jean attempted to pay more attention. There was some sort of commotion that occurred that Jean completely missed because Annie's door burst open to reveal someone who was definitely a stranger. Jean might not have known too much about his housemates but he definitely could recognise them by face and he could even identify two of them by voice.

"You've got a guest," the apparent housemate said. Jean had never heard a tone more neutral than that and he supposed it matched well with the loose brown hair and white T-shirt and jeans that screamed an intentionally generic. He hadn't the time to ask for any elaboration and Annie even began to ask, "Who has-" when  the sort-of-stranger was replaced in the doorway with a sheepish Eren.

"Must be for you," Annie said. She shuffled to the edge of the bed to pause the episode on her laptop before sending half a glance to Eren and saying, "You can come in."

"Thanks," Eren said quietly.

He kept his gaze fixed to the ground as he made his way into the room. There was no need for it really because Annie was a lot tidier than Jean. Whereas Jean's room was filled with boobytraps and pitfalls in the form of discarded garments lying in wait for a leg to wend their way around to trap an unsuspecting adventurer, such risks only occurred in Annie's room if someone opened her wardrobe without taking the proper precautions. Jean doubted Eren would have any reason to open Annie's wardrobe but there was always a chance she could grow too comfortable with him and ask him to retrieve a shirt she had invented just for the purpose of allowing him to get buried alive by everything she owned. It wouldn't be the first time she would have done such a thing.

Eren perched on the edge of Annie's bed, next to Jean but not so close as to make it weird that they were chilling on Annie's bed. He had yet to be buried by clothes so things must have been going well for him.

"What brings you to my bedroom?" Annie asked.

"Nothing much really, I just heard Jean was in a spot of trouble, that's all."

"How very generous of you to support him like this." Even now Jean struggled to detect Annie's more ironic statements. This one could have been very ironic though. It would have been easier if he could see her face to see the unimpressed smirk she was most probably wearing.

"Losing lots of work is a very serious thing," Eren said steadily, pink flushing away the steadier tones of his skin and giving him the fragility of something far less... Eren.

"I'll just have to redo it," Jean shrugged. The gesture of his shoulders was encumbered by the swathe of blankets so he pushed them down his arms so the unfurled petals made him look more engaged. "Thanks, though."

"What if you didn't have to redo your work though?"

It wasn't so long ago that Jean had been questioning Eren's intelligence, or rather his ability to understand what Jean wanted from him. Right now Jean was doing the very same thing because there was no way Eren could have once again become someone who said stupid things just to irritate Jean and confuse him and was generally a nuisance.

Stupid or not, the deepening pink in the apples of Eren's bunched up cheeks, the squinting glint of green, the palpable excitement from him practically vibrating off the edge of Annie's bed... He may or may not have had a sort of cute smile. Jean could forgive stupid if it looked like that all the time.

"I'll get around to it eventually. I don't even want to think about starting everything again just yet," Jean grumbled.

"Yeah, you'll wait until three days before the deadline like you did last year," Annie snorted. She was still fiddling about with her laptop and Jean couldn't think of a single thing that would have taken that much time and concentration, yet allowed her to throw snide remarks over her shoulder like that.

"No, but," Eren's flush had deepened and Jean was almost tempted to try and take his temperature. That would be weird though so he refrained. Eren leaned a bit closer, something of a wild glint in his eyes as he said, "You don't need to do that."

"Eren, seeing as I am getting myself into debt just by being here I think I might as well try to do moderately well."

"No, I..." Eren's brows furrowed as he leaned back into his own space as he searched through his pockets. He opened his fist to reveal a very familiar red plastic rectangle. "Here."

"What's this?" Jean asked warily.

"Hopefully it is yours, otherwise I wasted an afternoon and this went horribly wrong."

Jean's life might have been a little bit less over.

 

 

 

Jean had decided it would probably be cool of him to start replying to Eren's texts more frequently. It was the least he could do after having his entire life saved by Eren going out of his way to help Jean for absolutely no reason. It was tough, but Jean somehow managed to conjure the effort to at least reply with a smiley face, even if he could not care less about bedpans - whatever the hell they were. So what if it meant Eren took that as an invitation to send more text messages at more unsociable hours. Maybe Jean in an alternate universe would have needed to know that a homeless old man had called Eren a fine young lady at half past two in the morning. Jean in this universe thought it was a pretty useless thing to have relayed by the soul crushing buzz of his phone that he too-late realised was not his alarm.

_that's funny_

Jean shoved his phone back under his pillow and hoped that Eren wouldn't think this had become a conversation in the same way he had many times before. Obviously Jean's hope was in vain and almost immediately he was cringing against the persistent vibrating of his phone.

**do you want to hang out this afternoon?**

_its the middle of the night_

**yeah but this afternoon it won't be the middle of the night. if you've got something else on that's fine too.**

The thing was, Jean wasn't busy and seeing as he was trying to be sort of nice it would be better to kill time with Eren than staring at his bedroom walls and wondering whether he and Marco were at the stage where they could interact normally.

_im not busy. ill be round at2ish_

Jean was vaguely aware that he had fallen asleep in the time between sending and receiving texts.  but he didn't mind getting woken up by the reply as much as he thought he would.

**great! I can't wait!**

 

 

Eren immediately led Jean up the stairs. Red carpet seemed a bit tacky to Jean but he supposed Eren hardly had much choice in the matter. If he'd had even the slightest input on something as inconsequential as the colour of the carpets, Jean hoped Eren would have had the sense to sort out the eight creaking steps that definitely felt close to snapping. It was just one of those things that students had to put up with until their landlord thought somebody plummeting through the stairs was an actual risk. Jean didn't mind it as long as he wasn't the one to be unfortunate enough to die in a stairs-related incident.

Eren's room seemed emptier than Jean's though he definitely had more furniture. There were plastic stacks of draws lined up against one wall, the transparent draws revealing rolled up T-shirts and underwear, though the contents of most of them appeared to be crap. Jean couldn't think of a more appropriate word for scraps of paper and chewed pencils and broken paintbrushes and delaminating pub coasters. At least Jean's crap made sense, clothes strewn about the place because he was too lazy to sort out what was actually clean, what could last another couple of wears, and what needed to be incinerated. Eren's crap was just stupid but at least he had the decency to shove it away in draws.

"I don't have any chairs or anything. Is the bed okay?"

Eren was already sitting in his bed, nestled under the quilt and cradling a chipped blue mug in his lap. Jean had no idea why the lack of chairs would be a problem, because honestly he didn't know a single person who had chairs in their bedroom, until he realised that sitting beside Eren in his bed might not be such a good idea.

Eren was definitely ready to sleep and Jean had no idea what he was supposed to do. There was no obvious invitation for him to slip under the covers and pretend this was entirely normal. Perching on top of the covers seemed to be even more awkward than that though. He took the awkward option until Eren snorted and kicked the covers away enough to be a hint at what Jean's next move should be.

Jean wriggled his toes. Luckily with his feet hidden from view he wouldn't have to worry about the fact that both of his socks had holes at the heels. The holes certainly hadn't existed when he had yanked the socks on that morning, though he had been half-asleep at the time so he only had his own indignation to rely on for that. It was stupid to give holey socks such thought when Eren was clearly the kind of person to invite people into his bed willy-nilly. He looked half a yawn away from nodding off and here he was, defenceless against people who might try to steal all of his worldly possessions. His laptop was lying open near the foot of the bed - dangerously near the foot of the bed in Jean's opinion but Eren had retrieved it by hooking his foot underneath it before Jean had to comment. Eren didn't seem to have much else worth stealing, but Jean wasn't a thief so he had no clue what they might see as being valuable. Maybe Eren could fall victim to some far-out, artsy types who decided his transparent drawers of crap could make an excellent modern art piece of commentary about social politics that Jean had never even considered. Maybe not though.

"Are you okay?" Eren asked through a stifled yawn as he straightened out the quilt and balanced his laptop across the space between their thighs. Jean almost commented on the strange intimacy of something that seemed so practiced. He thought better of it though.

"Yeah," He said. "Is that soup?"

"Yeah. Do you want some?"

"Um,"  Jean glanced down at the mug and the oddly thin looking liquid that had left grainy tidemarks where it had receded. Eren did not look like he was in any state to go and make more of this awful looking soup and Jean was not particularly inclined to share. "No thank you."

"Okay," Eren said. Relief bled through his relaxed shoulders and his head made an audible thump as it rolled back into the wall. His eyes were shut for a moment. Jean had no idea why he had even come here, until he remembered that Eren totally saved his life and if this was the stuff he had to do to pay it back then he could do at least this much. Eren hummed and maybe stifled another yawn before opening his eyes. Despite the puffiness there was still something about the green that drew Jean's gaze and he sort of remembered thinking something along those lines when they met.

Maybe Jean could put up with the awkward tiredness of someone this good looking seeing as this was the person who had saved his life. Even if he wanted to downplay it, having his memory stick back was the most significant thing he could remember someone doing for him. Aside from that time Annie gave him the worst advice ever.

Eren slurped some of his soup and logged on to his laptop. He attempted to stifle a yawn as he waited for his laptop to whir into life but it really was a wasted effort.

"So what made you want to become a nurse?" Jean asked as Eren scrubbed a balled fist across his eyes and his mug of soup sloshed dangerously.

"My dad's a doctor and I think he was just ecstatic that I took any interest in medicine whatsoever. I think being a nurse is better than being a doctor because you really have to take care of these people and I think that good care really makes the difference to people when they're ill. Like some of the nurses that I met when my mum was in hospital were amazing." Eren slurped loudly again and this time his wasted efforts went towards masking a sappy, wide grin with the rim of the mug. "I still talk to some of them now and it's nice to know that there are people like that. I'll know I can do the job well when my mum tells me that I am anything like those nurses."

"That's... noble."

Eren snorted, the sound echoing in the mug still held up to his face. He loaded a dodgy looking website and Jean guessed they would watch a film. There probably was not much else they could do when Eren looked as though he had still not recovered from his night shift at hospital and Jean couldn't think of anything else to do.

"So engineering. What made you want to do that?"

"I don't know. It sort of sounded cool I suppose."

"Really?" Eren asked with an odd smile. "I can't think of anything that sounds less cool than engineering."

"I'm no nurse but without engineers there wouldn't be any hospitals to treat patients in."

"Oh yeah?"

"And no roads, and no houses, and no power stations. Basically there wouldn't be anything without engineers."

"It still doesn't sound cool."

 

 

At some point Eren's breathing had become too even and the weight against Jean's side was a titanic burn. How Eren even survived with a temperature that high was something Jean could not even comprehend because just sitting besides the radiated heat had Jean sweating and desperate to relieve the prickle under his skin. He pushed the quilt away but he almost immediately curled a little bit closer to the warmth at the starkly cold air of Eren's bedroom.

They were experiencing an unusually mild Autumn but he must have been sitting in Eren's bed long enough to suddenly be suffering the dead of winter. He guessed there was only around half an hour left of the Lego Movie, not that Eren had consciously seen much beyond the first ten minutes. They hadn't been sitting here long enough for a season to pass but Jean pulled the quilt back over his legs and wondered whether watching the remainder of the film would bring an almighty thaw.

Eren had been asleep for a while but it was only as the Lego figures were trying to blend in with what Jean guessed to be robots that he thought about Eren's mug of soup. Eren seemed to have drunk most of it but the dregs would certainly be enough to cause all sorts of unpleasantness. Jean deftly loosened Eren's rigor-stiff grip around the mug's handle and placed it on the trembling stack of drawers that Eren must have been using as a bedside table. At least he didn't need to awkwardly reach across Eren to put the mug down. It was a double bed but it wasn't really possible to guess which side Eren slept in. Maybe anywhere would do for him seeing as he had dozed off mostly on Jean.

Jean huffed. The film wasn't so bad but it didn't seem like the sort of thing to make a big deal out of inviting somebody over to watch. Especially when the quality of the video stream kept changing and Eren's laptop screen was mysteriously grubby. No doubt a lot of the murky smears were from errant globs of soup. It wasn't the worst way Jean had spent an afternoon.

By the time The Lego Movie ended - and everyone lived happily ever after - Eren was soundly asleep. It would be weird to stick around, so Jean closed  the lid of Eren's laptop. He climbed out of the bed and draped the covers over Eren without trying to seem too intent on tucking him in. He moved the laptop from the bed, put it on the floor but far away enough from the bed that Eren wouldn't roll out of bed and step right on it or anything silly like that. When he encountered Armin on his way out Jean said nothing at all and hoped this wouldn't be brought up inconveniently in the way that Armin was so prone to do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowowow the half-way point... I totally missed a week but I have had a bit of a time of things at work. I know its not an excuse (especially as this wasn't even a long chapter or anything) but in three weeks I won't be there anymore so hopefully that will motivate me to keep my own deadlines!  
> Besides that, is Jean maybe warming up to Eren finally? Ohoho wouldn't that be nice.  
> I won't make any promises with the next chapter except that I promise there will be some very mild cuteness.


	8. Candy Canes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even though nobody has bothered doing any work so far it is suddenly time to hand in the first semester's assignments and it is also Christmas. Eren might be a little bit ill and Jean is definitely still stupid.

It was freezing cold the day Jean handed in his last assignment for the semester. It had been freezing cold all week before that, but he had to retrieve an extra pair of socks when he was attempting to proofread the assignment the night before it was due in. That meant it was extra cold - and also an extra disappointment when he ran down the stairs the next morning and planted his newly-bare foot in a puddle of goodness only knew what.

The surprises for Jean were only bad ones that morning. Following the sticky stair puddle, Jean had to deal with an empty toothpaste tube, out-of-date milk clotting at the back of his tongue, another puddle - which was more to do with the fissured surface of the road than his housemates' inconsideration - though this was ankle-deep unlike the first puddle of the day, and a half hour wait for a bus despite the timetable insisting they were scheduled for every eight minutes.

But it was okay because he had finished his assignments and he was on his way to submit them. He had hard copies and electronic copies on his memory stick. Brilliance had struck when he decided to also save the files as attachments to draft emails. There was no way this day would go completely wrong for him because he had set up several contingencies. He had until one o'clock to submit his work but Jean had left the house in time to arrive at ten o'clock. He was only half an hour behind schedule but he was still fine, his plan had allowed for some breathing room.

The hard copies of his assignments were good enough, the paper still crisp and unblemished in his folder and ready to be handed in. His hand might have wobbled as he signed the receipts but the work was submitted, so it was fine. The woman behind the counter grinned at him, told him he could relax now, and Jean wheezed out the cloud that had been condensing in his lungs. She was right he could totally relax now.

Until he wheeled right around on his heel to find Eren shuffling his own armfuls of paper.

"Eren!" Jean's voice was too loud and he tried to breathe normally, just the like the woman had told him to, but his chest was tight in the way it had only ever been when he had done something stupid like rip down his curtains while practicing to be a Power Ranger.

Eren looked hesitant as he returned the greeting with a much quieter, "How are you?"

"Fine. You?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Eren looked anything but fine. The puffiness that had been gathering around Eren's eyes a week or so ago was a thicker red that deepened to a purplish weight at the sockets of his eyes. He sniffed loudly and moved towards the desk to submit his work. Whether or not Eren saw the woman visibly cringe at his appearance was less relevant when Jean wondered if his own reaction had been that obviously surprised. Nobody spoke while Eren shuffled poly wallets of paper and sheets of paper he was to sign except for the receptionist thanking Eren for his work and indicating where he should sign.

There was a bottle of hand sanitizer that the receptionist eyed warily when Eren's gaze was fixed on the paper, the loud sniffs probably meaning there was an increased risk of snot-spotted paper on the desk. Jean tried to smile back at the receptionist like they were in on the same joke but he was mostly wondering why Eren had dragged himself out of bed this morning. Surely he could have had someone else bring his work in, or there might have been some other way he could submit the work without risking death and spreading the plague to more people than strictly necessary.  

Eren seemed content to finish his interaction with the woman at the desk with a fit of sneezing which had her grimacing and lunging across her desk for the hand sanitizer.

"Sorry," Jean mumbled as he steered Eren into one of the independent study rooms. A dozen or so students who saw fit to leave things to the last minute were sat at the computers lining the room and one or two flinched as Eren sneezed yet again.

There were some soft seats away from most of the chairs and Jean nudged Eren towards one of the seats and sat opposite him as comfortably as he could pretend to be.

"Are you looking forwards to Christmas?"

"Yeah," Eren paused and sniffed before gulping ominously. While Jean swallowed against the bile rising in the back of his throat, Eren went on, "I love Christmas. The house looks like... it looks like elves have thrown up all over it."

Jean wasn't sure this was the best time for throwing up to be brought up in conversation.

"Cool."

Eren sniffed again. "Are you excited?"

"I suppose so. My mum's probably going to make me hang out with my weird cousins or something though. I think they're visiting this year." Jean didn't fully shudder at the thought but that was mostly because through the bleary gloss of tiredness, Eren was frowning across the way.

"Are you going home for Christmas?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"But, like. I'm not far. Like, maybe ten minutes away from the house I am renting now. Sometimes Annie makes me take her clothes to my mum's house because our washing machine isn't that reliable."

"Oh," Eren said again. He sniffed again too, except this one was long and unabashedly a disgusting, gurgling mess. He said, "Why didn't you just stay at home? You could have saved yourself some money."

"In the first year I needed to get away from my mum. She was a bit," Jean couldn't think of a word better than 'terrifically stifling' so he left the sentence to hang before continuing. "I kind of like living with Annie now. She's mean and probably a bit evil but she is helping me feel more independent."

Eren smiled. "Yeah, she seems nice."

"Yeah. Are you going home for Christmas?"

"No. I've got a couple of shifts at the hospital. This is the busiest time of year so I thought it would be some really good experience."

"Really?"

Jean couldn't think of a worse thing for Eren to do than to be caring for sick people in the state that he was in but he decided not to question it for now. Eren nodded earnestly and Jean secretly hoped Eren's sickness would get worse. Jean didn't know much about nursing but from what he had gathered it sounded horrible. Long shifts and having to give bed-baths to people who did nothing but complain did not sound like the kind of thing many people would be excited to do. Surely even Eren would have a terrible time if he had to be on his feet for twelve hours.

"Maybe when I've had enough of my weird cousins and you've had enough of the hospital, we could watch some TV or something," Jean said quietly, because that was better than saying that he hoped Eren got worse.

"Really?"

Jean tried not to wince to visibly at the loud, spluttering cough that marred the end of the word and he decided he must have done a good job when his slow nod was answered with a teeny tiny smile.

 

 

The only reason Jean invited Eren over was to make sure he hadn't dropped dead yet. Sending texts from beyond the grave seemed like something that Eren would be capable of, especially as he could carry an entire chronicle of conversations by himself, so physically checking up on him was Jean's only option.

Eren seemed okay though.

"What's that?" Jean asked a little dumbly. as soon as he had opened the front door his eyes had latched onto the tufts of artificial, white, fluff haloing around Eren's head and he honestly didn't like where this was going.

"It's a hat," Eren grinned, reaching to lift the trailing end and wobble the bobble about proudly.

Eren looked a little bit better than he had on the submission day but Jean was beginning to feel faint. Eren had walked down the street wearing a Santa hat and now he expected to be allowed to cross the threshold into Jean's home while wearing it.

"I have one for you too," Eren said as he shoved what was undoubtedly another Santa hat at Jean.

Jean very slowly reached out to take the hat and wondered whether Annie could feel some faint force summoning her.

Jean was probably allergic to Christmas. He certainly had developed an aversion to any shop with even a hint of tinsel at the windows and he had done his best to not be included in any Secret Santas. He disliked most things about Christmas besides Christmas Dinner, but he could just call it a Roast and pretend it was any other day. He was not the type to wear the cheap synthetic hats that were as embarrassing as they were itchy and... weird.

Then again he had been fine with Christmas until a few years ago when maybe some card or other was tattered and crumpled in the bottom of his bag because the intended recipient wasn't really a Christmas sort of person.

Jean quickly tugged Eren across the threshold and slammed the door shut before motioning for Eren to follow him up the stairs in a very cautious sprint. He slammed the door to his bedroom and wondered if maybe Annie would take that as some sort of invitation. It wouldn't have been the first time seeing as she occasionally stumbled into dodo-esque moods, attracted by the sounds of people attempting to dodge humiliation in order to completely destroy their lives. Jean vaguely recalled somebody in the house sobbing uncontrollably at some evil movie apparently marketed for children and then calling their mother for three quarters of an hour until they had calmed down somewhat. Jean wasn't sure what relevance that memory had, even if it did click in his mind he was loathe to reveal what he knew, but it was something worth thinking about.

He very delicately placed the hat on top of his head. Eren laughed. The sound wasn't unkind but Jean was flushed with the kind of heat indicative of Annie's imminence. He was certain of it.

"Do you want a drink or anything?"

"I was hoping you would ask that," Eren chirped all too festively. He swung his backpack off his shoulders and cradled it in his arms as he fiddled with the zips that seemed a bit too sticky. When he finally wriggled the zips open he withdrew a large bottle of what turned out to be sparkling water. Jean took the bottle and the two plastic wine glasses that were proffered.

"What's this?"

"Champagne is a little bit out of my price range."

"So the next best thing was obviously water."

"Well my parents always go on about Asti Spumante around this time of year but it's not really my thing, so. Yeah. Water," Eren concluded sheepishly.

"I suppose it saves me from going out there looking like- Uh, you know." Jean made a gesture that he hoped indicated the hat.

Jean put the glasses on the chest of drawers which was already overcrowded on the top. He poured them each a glass of sparkling water - it was Pellegrino and Jean supposed that was a posh as anything - and passed one to Eren. As they sat on the bed beside one another it felt a bit too much like returning to the scene of a crime.

"I know you didn't invite me here for great hats and even better drinks."

"Obviously," Jean said, "Otherwise we would be partaking in great hats and drinks right now."

Eren swatted his arm and huffed. "You can't be mean to me, it's Christmas."

"Not for another fortnight it isn't."

"Ten days," Eren corrected over the rim of his glass. He took a sip and then said, "Okay. You can't be mean because you obviously asked me here so I could help you with your packing."

Honestly, Jean was cautiously defensive of the possibility that Eren was entertaining other ideas. But that worked. It was partly why Jean had invited Eren over. It worked as well as any excuse just to make sure that Eren hadn't dropped dead of man-flu or whatever it was he had contracted. 

"How did you guess?" Jean asked after some substantial throat-clearing.

"I must be psychic."

Jean was eternally grateful for the fact that Eren was not psychic because he would have had to pack his clothes all by himself. After all the things Jean was aware that he had thought about Eren, he knew not much of it was very flattering, unless Eren considered 'he's ridiculously good-looking but also potentially very crazy' to be a compliment. Not that Eren was much help with the packing beyond nudging articles across the floor with his foot and asking why Jean owned so many checked shirts.

Jean was still wearing the hat by the time he was walking Eren down the stairs. It had become less and less uncomfortable and Jean didn't mind wearing it so much for a short period of time. Christmas was still a bit of a con but who was he to piss in people's cereal because he claimed not to like it?

He hesitated at the front door. This was definitely too familiar. Annie hadn't shown up just yet so at least humiliation was being kept to a bare minimum. What Jean really needed was a guarantee that this wouldn't get weird. It was different, seeing each other in public and each making their own way home because a stiff wave was all the gesturing needed to go along with an insincere "see you later." Eren had been asleep when Jean left his house so there was nothing ambiguous there. It would have been weirder to make a fuss out of anything.  The last time they had been in this situation there was an expectation a tad too heavy for Jean to carry.

"Thanks for helping me," Jean said, his fingers twitching on the latch of the front door.

"You're welcome. If you ever need any help you know how to contact me."

"Yeah. Thanks."

Eren grinned widely and adjusted the straps of his backpack on his shoulders. "I should get going."

"Yeah, absolutely," Jean agreed. He struggled with the latch until it gave smoothly to let him pull the door open. A freezing gust pushed against the door and Jean stumbled away from the force of its swing. "You don't have a coat. Are you going to be okay?"

"I'm always really hot so it would be a bit of a relief to be honest."

"You're sure?"

"Of course."

"Okay," Jean said. "I was just checking."

Eren nodded. His grin grew and there was something markedly different about the amusement in his eyes. He moved forwards but stopped at Jean's flinch. Something in the atmosphere dimmed and Eren's next breath was as strong as the one that almost made Jean's arm a victim of the door. "I really do need to go now, Jean."

"Yeah," Jean nodded.

"It would probably help if you moved out of the way though."

"Oh."

Jean stepped out of the way, pushed himself against the wall and let Eren sidle past. As soon as he stepped out into the cold, Eren quickly threw a wave over his shoulder and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.  He was gone.

When Jean closed the door he could expel all the thick air from his lungs. He had no idea why he was so sure Eren would have wanted to hug him.

 

 

Jean didn't know Mikasa at all. he knew her by sight and he knew her by name but he had no idea how to actually have a conversation with her. Forgetting that, he also had no idea how to explain his presence at the doorstep she apparently shared with Eren.

"Hello," Jean said.

He wished he had never come. The was all Annie's fault. If she hadn't given Jean some terrible advice he never would have confessed to Marco and he would never have been rejected and he never would have tried to drown his sorrows and he would never have actually met Eren so when Eren eventually did get sick Jean would never have had to hear from Marco (of all people) who had heard from Armin that Eren was apparently very sick.

There was no way Jean could say any of that.

It was fantastic that Marco was happy with things, that he was glad not to be laden down with the burden of Jean's ineffectual attempts at subtle flirting and hope. It was brilliant. Obviously. Not. Less brilliant than that was Jean holding a poorly insulated flask of soup. Not the Cup A Soup crap that Eren subsisted on, but actual soup that was made from vegetables that were once alive. Whether Eren genuinely liked the powdered crap or not was irrelevant. When he was ill he needed to have something that could make a solid claim to being real food.

It proved quite difficult to say that to Mikasa too.

"Soup," is what he ended up saying to Mikasa's stony glare.

Jean had more than just soup. He knew that he hated being ill and he also knew that it looked quite bad that he'd only heard of Eren's actual bedridden-ness through a grapevine of sorts. In addition to asking his mum to help him make soup he had asked her what was good for a sick person. He ignored the mocking, "treat them like the massive baby they are, of course!" and waited patiently for her real answer. Some of the things she said did sound useful so jean stuffed his bag with Lucozade (for electrolytes or something else equally as mysteriously scientific), forehead cooling strips (because those were always useful), a blanket (in case Eren needed another), and The Santa Clause and The Santa Clause 2 on DVD. Questionable movies aside, they all sounded like things Eren might need judging by the report of 'probably not dying.'

Who was Marco to judge whether or not Eren was dying? Marco didn't even know Eren beyond whatever the hell Armin said. But that shouldn't have mattered. Because Jean was here now and he was totally sort of a good friend.

"I thought Eren might want some soup and stuff because he's ill and stuff."

"Okay," Mikasa said neutrally. For a moment Jean wondered whether he should add more. Mikasa moved aside to let Jean in before he hammed it up too much.

The second after stepping into the house, Jean was hit with a wave of dizzying festivity. He vaguely recalled something about elves throwing up all over the house and despite the nondescript exterior, the interior of the house probably had been subject to such a treatment. Every door handle and baluster was swathed with glittering ropes of tinsel and the doorways were lined with a very flammable-looking combination of tinsel and fairy lights.

Jean pulled off his shoes as directed and tried vainly not to trip over the grotesque plastic snowmen that were glowing ominously near the door. As he followed Mikasa up the stairs he wondered whether her very neutral expressions were simply a mask for a person so Christmas-crazed that she would suspend shimmering stars from the ceilings and hang wreaths on every door. Whether or not she was secretly a frankincense-fanatic, there was no way she was the sort of person to sprinkle fake snow along the skirting boards and bundle cotton wool into corners for the hideously mischievous elves to perch on, frozen in myrrh-scented mirth.

Jean tripped over an errant elf and wondered when he had stopped dodging stars and started dodging aerodynamic angels.

"This all seems a bit dangerous," Jean commented lightly as he batted an angel away from his face. It twirled, balletic on its string, and Mikasa glanced back at Jean over his shoulder before shrugging.

"It's Christmas."

Her voice sounded too careful and Jean was one hundred percent certain that she was suppressing a laugh when she faced forwards once more.

When they reached the door to Eren's room, Jean was mentally exhausted. Maybe Christams wasn't for Jean after all.

Mikasa very delicately opened the door, certain not to disturb the fluffs and tufts of silver and purple tinsel  wrapped around the handle. She poked her head around the door and exhaled in what could have been amusement. The door was opened wider and there wasn't much that Jean could find funny inside - aside from the cavern of fairy lights canopied around the head of Eren's bed. He snuffled and coughed and Jean had no idea how Eren was actually sleeping inside what could only be described as a discotheque.

"So you're just dropping off the soup?" Mikasa asked, nudging Jean with her elbow.

He had to draw his gaze away from Eren shoving his face into his pillow to glance at Mikasa's thinly veiled amusement. She had definitely been laughing at him the whole time. She might even have been worse than Annie.

"I was sort of hoping to, you know, properly make sure that he was okay."

"Really?" Mikasa asked dryly.

Eren coughed, the sort of loud chesty cough that had Jean wincing at the thought of the raking force of it. It sounded bad. Now that he was here he could ascertain that Eren was not okay. Eren groaned weakly into his pillow and smacked his lips together loudly.

"So you want to stay for a bit?"

Jean glanced back at Mikasa to see the peak of her smirk.

It was a good job Jean was used to being laughed at.

"Yes, please."

Mikasa laughed, a soft snuffle of a sound that might have been for Eren's benefit more than anything. At least it was less mean than expected. She patted Jean on the shoulder and said, "Don't get too crazy."

Jean had no idea what crazy meant but he struggled to say anything when he was pushed into the room gently and the door clicked closed behind him. It was only a second ago that Jean had thought that Mikasa was not mean because this certainly was very mean. Jean was just some idiot with a backpack full of crap and no idea what making sure Eren was okay really meant.

He spotted Eren's laptop on the floor beside Eren's bed. It had most likely tipped right off the edge because it was half leaning against the low mattress.

Jean slipped his backpack from his shoulders and took slow, gentle steps as he approached the bedside. He sank to the ground, placed the flask of soup beside his crossed legs, and decided to check the laptop first. Eren coughed again and it sounded even more painful than before. There wasn't much Jean could do about that though and Eren probably would have been worried about his laptop if he was sound of mind. It only made sense for Jean to test it out. The perfect test was to put one of the DVDs in the laptop just to make sure it would play media. It only made sense to try the first of The Santa Clause films.

He kept the volume down and reached behind him to make sure it was plugged into the wall socket. in the process he made the executive decision to  turn off the flashing fairy lights because Jean wasn't even ill and they were making him feel very sick.

The first Santa had only just landed on the roof and died or whatever when Jean noticed Eren watching him blearily. Honestly he looked like a very puffy child.

"Hi," Jean said. He didn't like how his voice cracked so he cleared his throat and tried again. "Are you okay?"

Eren blinked slowly.

Jean paused the film and quickly reached into his backpack and grabbed the first things his hand touched.

"I have some cooling strips if you need some. Or a drink, or, like, soup or something."

Eren blinked again and coughed. Jean maybe should have considered how long it could take him to open something as simple as a cardboard box. As he hadn't even foreseen the possibility of a problem it took him far too long to defeat the little tab of tape that kept the box sealed. He finally got the box open by ripping the top flap off and he was quicker when unwrapping one of the cooling sheets inside. Eren's eyes slipped shut as Jean smoothed the cold gel side against his skin. He felt no clammier than usual and Jean had to wonder whether Eren was actually just sick all the time.

Seeing as Eren was awake, there was no point in him missing the fun that was The Santa Clause. Even if it was a stupid Christmas movie that Jean totally hated. He used the blanket he brought himself to drape over his shoulders and sat next to Eren against the headboard. Eren's laptop was balanced across the space between their thighs - or it could have been perched on Jean's thigh and a particularly sturdy fold of blankets, it was difficult to tell really - and Jean passed the flask of soup that seemed like a very flimsy excuse now.

"I bought some soup."

Eren returned the favour with a pained smile. "Ah, can you open this for me?"

"Of course," Jean said quickly. He took the flask and unscrewed both lids before pouring half an inch of soup into the cup-type lid.

"Thank you. This is nice, where did you get it?"

"Um. My house, I suppose," Jean muttered. He quickly played the movie and wondered why he hadn't bothered using headphones initially. If he had used headphones from the start of the film he would not have had Eren staring at the side of his head with some sort of expression that Jean wasn't ready to deal with.

Eren reached the pause the film. "What do you mean you got it from your house?"

"I don't know. I probably made it," Jean said, quickly pressing play again.

Eren paused it again. Tim Allen would never get to finish a sentence at this rate. "Jean, that's really nice of you. Thank you."

Jean shrugged as he pressed play, wondering how anyone could stand to be around Eren when he constantly radiated so much heat. Jean was practically sweating bullets here. When he noticed Eren's hand reaching towards his laptop again, Jean closed his hand around Eren's fingers and stopped the motion. He grumbled, "Just go to sleep or something."

Eren didn't quite go to sleep  but once Jean let go of his hand he did shut up. Jean spent a long time not looking anywhere except for the screen. Even though Jean was totally focused on the film, he did notice that Eren was asleep before Tim Allen had time to complain about the magical beard and extra padding he was gaining for his new job.

The heat was almost unbearable but Jean was a bit too comfortable overall to move and unwrap some of the excess layers. It would also have been a pain to dislodge the weight of Eren draped over the right half of his body. It was better to leave things as they were. It was sort of nice despite the heat.

It was maybe a bit less comfortable when Eren farted ridiculously loudly. Jean couldn't believe no conscious people were around to laugh about it with him.

It was sort of an okay afternoon though. The stuffy snuffles when Jean smoothed the peeling edge of Eren's cooling strip was sort of a tiny bit cute, so that helped. But things stopped being cute when Eren suddenly flinched in his sleep  and shoved away from Jean with enough force that he stumbled to the ground with a bang and a whimper. He managed to make it out of his room after tripping and bumping into the wall a few times.

Jean was thankful for the fact that Eren seemed to have some natural instinct to dash to the bathroom at the first sign of rising bile so Jean could deal with the fact that it was only fair that he armed himself with some water and a blanket and resolved to hold back Eren's hair.

 

When Jean returned home after a Christmas full of pretending to care about his cousins' cat farm he could not help but notice that Annie looked particularly chipper.

"You look happy."

"Oh, I am," Annie said silkily. It was the tone of voice most often heard when she could not stop stroking her own freshly-shaved legs but even laden down with luggage in the doorway, Jean could see that Annie hadn't shaved her legs for a while. It had to be something else.

She didn't give him any more clues but she very helpfully relieved him of one of his bags only to place it right in the middle of the stairs to wait for a victim to trip.

Jean dodged his bag and made a mental note to come for that a bit later. He struggled with his suitcase up the stairs and upon opening his bedroom door wondered whether physical fatigue was the cause of his confusion.

A very large teddy bear was sitting in front of the door, waiting for his return with a bouquet of artificial roses stuffed into its arms. Jean abandoned his suitcase in the doorway because this looked like a much lighter burden to deal with and he poked at the fabric flowers to see candy canes tied in with the stems. It was the strangest surprise he'd suffered in a while and Jean couldn't think of anything he had done to deserve something like this. He tugged at the bobble of the hat on the bear's head but it must have been sewn on. It was not as though Jean wanted to try on the hat, he already had the one that Eren left behind when Jean was packing, but he had been a bit curious about it.

It was a little bit stupid but Jean thought it would be a waste not to try one of the candy canes right away. The sugar immediately set to work at coating his teeth and the sweetness was a bit too much for Jean not to cringe at the feel of it. He poked the bear's belly, grabbed at its hands, and then wrapped his arms around the fluffiness.

Jean didn't quite understand why this made him feel like an idiot but he wanted to tell Eren that obviously he was a much bigger idiot.

Or maybe Jean was the biggest idiot because a scraping sound alerted him to Annie smirking at him from the doorway.

"Cute," She said, the tone turning to a tackle when Jean lobbed at candy cane at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I did better time-wise for this chapter but I did have a Bank Holiday Weekend to do this. In two weeks I will be unemployed so hopefully having time will help be get my bum into gear to write this.  
> I think Jean might have a teeny tiny bit of a problem with honesty but at least he is not being the worst person in the world so much. That may or may not be subject to change in the next chapter.


	9. Pineapple Juice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is another party and Jean is a terrible drunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn't as bad plot-wise as I thought it would be. The way it is written, on the other hand, is not quite as good as I thought it would be

The whole point of returning to the university house was for Jean to avoid attempting to darken his mother's doorstep with his rat-arsed self after Reiner's rumoured New Years Eve party. Ferrying all his belongings back on the bus was obviously a wasted effort because Jean would sooner invoke a bout of alcohol poisoning so he could escape from his life for a night of getting his stomach pumped.  When the other option was coming to terms with the fact that Marco was partaking in some heavy petting with a girl Jean had never seen before, it was clear what the better option was.

It was funny, Jean thought a little dumbly, that he had assumed today would have been as good a day as any to stop being weird around Marco. Maybe the stupid bear he had come home to that afternoon had lulled him into a false sense of welcomeness and understanding. He could totally welcome the idea that there was not much of a chance for romance between them at present and Jean was entirely capable of understanding that was how things were at that moment.

It wasn't even midnight and Marco was - well 'kissing' might not be quite the right word to describe what he was doing with that girl, but he decided that's what he would call it if he ever brought this up because the ruddiness of Marco's face suggested this whole excessive mouth-to-skin contact was something a sober Marco would be less inclined to do.

A little bit less funny was the fact that awkwardly sitting near Marco and the girl were other girls conversing with varying expressions of disinterest. One of those other girls was Annie. As in Annie whose bedroom was next to his on the third floor of the house they shared. So besides Marco there was someone in that vicinity who Jean knew. Someone who Jean could use as a source of information. A _reliable_ source of information.

He strategically sat on the stairs outside the living room and pretended to look casual as he sent a text.

_dont make it obvious. come to the hall to talk to me for a minute_

Annie took three minutes and maybe thirty-eight seconds to come. Jean had to mostly guess because after slowly counting to ten he started the stopwatch on his phone. It was more fine that just staring into space and avoiding eye contact with people like Reiner's weird, quiet friend who made several trips in and out of the front door.

"What do you want?" Annie asked with the neutrality to suggest she already knew.

"That's a nice dress," Jean said because it was true. Green sequins definitely suited her. "Is it new?"

"You were with me when I bought it."

"Oh. Really?"

"Remember about two months ago when you spent half an hour making me help you choose between three polo shirts? One was red, two were white, one of the white ones had long sleeves and but the other one had two stripes around the collar. And then after smuggling me into the changing rooms to listen to you whinge about all three of them, you bought a green one because the shop assistant said it was more your colour."

"Are you sure?"

"You're wearing it right now," Annie said through gritted teeth her glare glinting as dangerously as her dress. Annie seemed to realise how well they matched at the same time as Jean. "Go home and change."

"Why should I?"

"Because I said so. We live together, people are going to think that we co-ordinated on purpose."

"You change then," Jean grumbled. "If I go home now I am never going to leave the house again. I won't even leave my room and when they find my skeleton in there after a thousand years they will also find the message about how much of a bad friend you are carved into the plaster on the walls."

Annie crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "Let's just not stand near each other too much then. Why did you send me that weird text anyway?"

Being reminded of the whole reason this conversation occurred wasn't too great.

"You're hanging out with Marco, right?" Annie's eyebrows arched and she nodded before tucking her hair behind her ear. "So maybe you'd know who that girl he's... kissing is."

"Yeah, I know her."

"So..."

"She's my friend," Annie said. Then, "Mina. She's Marco's girlfriend and she has been for a couple of months."

Annie's arms tightened across her chest and she even looked a bit apologetic as she watched Jean attempt not to react.

"I know you didn't mention it to me, but I thought he would have told you. Especially after-"

"Don't," Jean said, the sharpness of the syllable only barely catching on Annie's skin and making her mouth twitch. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. No, he didn't tell me."

"I thought you knew and that's why you and Eren-"

"Annie, please, just..."

She nodded, squeezed Jean's elbow with a wordless apology and he patted her on the shoulder. She left him alone and at least Jean didn't have to make up some excuse for not paying attention to people walking past. Despite the awkward telling Marco that he loved him, they were still friends. Jean had assumed things would still be sort of normal to some extent. So why Marco had kept quiet for a few months about having a girlfriend was beyond Jean's understanding. Then again he was sure he would only have had some stupid reaction to the news.

Surely it would have come up at some point though. Marco is Jean's best friend and this Mina person is best friends with Annie so it had the potential to come up.

Jean could still taste one of the candy canes he had eaten that afternoon. He had brushed his teeth after crunching his way through three of them but maybe he missed the taste melting from his tongue and teeth so he had another before he left. As sweet as the candy canes had been it wasn't sweet enough to outlast the realisation that maybe he wasn't as close to Marco as he thought he was. Or maybe he was just too self-involved and sensitive to pay much attention to anything else.

Maybe he needed something more bitter to overpower the rising well of bitterness at the back of his tongue.

He walked through the living room and ignored the mild concern on Annie's face as he passed by. The small table in the kitchen was groaning under the weight of bottles and cans. Jean pressed the heel of his hand onto the closest corner and it creaked without collapsing. He pulled a can of lager from the plastic rings of a six pack.

"I wouldn't recommend that," a voice noted over his shoulder. Jean didn't know the girl who said it and considered her for a moment as he took the first sip. It tasted rank. It was perfect.

His head was starting to hurt and he was glad that he had always been a bit of a light-weight with the booze.

"Who are you?" He asked the girl.

"I don't need to answer that," She said. "I live here. Who are you?"

"I'm Jean," Jean said. He already finished one can and there was no better time than to start another one. He decided to sip this can rather than gulp it down. "So you live here with Reiner?"

"Or does Reiner live here with me?"

"I don't know."

She laughed. "Look after yourself, Jean. Drink some water."

Jean absolutely did not want to take that girl's advice. Rather than drink water he drank another couple of cans of lager whilst standing in the kitchen. He felt a bit sick and he needed a piss but he really couldn't conjure the effort to do all of those things. He went outside. The back door was ajar and the breeze was fresh. It would probably help Jean think. He had grown quite fond of the back garden the last time he had been here. 

The air really did help him to think.

The garden itself was generally a good place to be apparently. After a month or so of the sickliest shades of green cloistering themselves against everything in the name of festivity it was nice to not be able to see green because of the dark. It was nice that all the colours were muted and dull and it was dark aside from the circles of illumination from the kitchen window.

Apparently quite a few other people had come outside to think. Or just talk. Whatever. What mattered was the fact that Jean could think and he was outside and he sort of knew what he wanted. After the bitterness of the cheap lager which probably doubled as paint-stripper in some country Jean couldn't pronounce the name of, he knew he wanted something a bit sweeter. He wanted the candy canes again, except he didn't want to have to go back home and pretend he didn't want to hug a stupid cuddly bear, and he didn't want to pretend that eating candy canes was good enough.

He was outside too. Eren was outside, maybe looking up at some guy with a little bit too much intensity as he spoke and Jean couldn't quite hear because he was covering his ears because his head hurt. Eren's face softened the moment he glanced in Jean's direction. He was beautiful. He was smiling. He was patting that other guy on the shoulder. He was strolling across the grass to Jean.

"Hey."

"I've been looking for you," Jean said as he dropped his hands from his ears. "When I got home I had a present."

Eren stopped smiling. "Oh, so you're back at the house."

"Yeah, I came back today. The bear was... cute."

"No, it wasn't. It was stupid," Eren said. "Maybe I am still a bit ill or something because I thought it was a good idea. It was stupid."

"It wasn't stupid," Jean said. "I really liked it."

He really did like the bear, and he liked that Eren was stubbornly blushing. He liked that there wasn't much distance between them and he liked that if he twitched his wrist just slightly his hand would meet Eren's. So he did, he nudged Eren's hand and watched the red deepen into the night as he hooked their fingers together. They were practically holding hands and Jean remembered that he probably liked kissing Eren.

The first kiss was just a press of lips, or it was supposed to be until acidic sweetness corroded Jean's pretence of control.

"Oh, my god, you taste fantastic," Jean murmured into Eren's mouth before chasing the sweetness on Eren's slick lips and taking as much as he could from the kiss. "What have you been eating?"

"Nothing," Eren said, voice muffled against the hunger of Jean's mouth. He pulled away, a delectable shade of pink and said, "I have only been drinking pineapple juice all night."

"That's so sexy. Did you, did you know that like pineapple makes your cum taste great. Oh god is that why you did it? Was that for me?"

"I don't know about that," Eren said, the heat in his cheeks growing but the crease in his brow deepening. Suddenly they weren't practically holding hands anymore and Eren was saying something else except his face was turned away and he had stepped away from Jean to look at someone who was standing in the doorframe.

Mikasa was very different when she wasn't being scary and overly neutral and standing between Jean and his chances of trying to be nice to Eren. Her smile was quite nice, even if there was something of a smarmy undertone to it.

"Not interrupting anything, are we?" Mikasa asked Eren and Eren was being strange - He was looking beyond Mikasa's shoulder to Armin . Jean was not surprised to see that Armin did not look particularly impressed. It was in stark contrast to Mikasa's grin but for the entirety of the time Jean had known Eren, Armin had never been anything but disappointed and unimpressed with Jean. He had made peace with that default. Jean might have been a bit surprised at Eren's response to Mikasa's question.

"Not at all."

Jean would absolutely disagree with that. Mikasa and Armin were most definitely interrupting the union of Jean and Eren's mouths, which was totally something that should go uninterrupted for as long as possible. Jean didn't know how he could possibly forget how fond he was of kissing Eren but he knew that it hadn't happened enough.

 

Eren was being strange.

"Do you want to go somewhere quieter?" Jean asked very slowly so that Eren knew he was very serious.

Eren looked at him for a bit too long after the question with the sort of expression that didn't quite fit right on his face. Perhaps he wanted to let Jean know that he was being serious too. He finally nodded. He glanced back towards the door to the house. He looked a little bit lost as he turned back to face Jean and reached for Jean's hand tentatively.

"That might be a good idea," Eren said. The slight breeze that brushed pink high into Eren's cheeks and softened the tufts of his hair seemed to be timed too perfectly. "Come with me for a moment. I guess I'll see you two a bit later?"

Mikasa looked a little bit confused as she stepped aside but she was still wearing half a smile as she agreed. Armin was nowhere near smiling, but when was he ever these days? Jean had no clue but he wasn't one to inflame a situation. He tried not to look too smug as Eren led him somewhere quieter.

There were an awkward few minutes when Jean thought that maybe Eren was in need of medical attention - somewhere quieter would never have meant the living room where all the music was blasting and most of the people were congregated around Reiner, but that was where Jean was led initially. He almost lost his grip in the slick slide of clammy palms that didn't quite match and his inebriated stumbling probably didn't help matters. The being a bit too drunk definitely didn't help matters when he lost Eren's hand entirely and Reiner was stooping to hold some semi-private conversation with Eren .

Reiner's brow was furrowed deeply, like he carried all the weight of the world across his impossibly broad shoulders. He straightened up from Eren's mouth at his ear and nodded, the lines in his forehead smoothing out to a minor degree. Despite backing away, Reiner's hand came to rest on Eren's shoulder and he leaned back in to press what was probably a kiss to Eren's forehead. Jean couldn't be entirely certain that half of these odd kisses he had witnessed tonight were entirely appropriate.

It was weird, but before Jean could even consider how to ask whether or not that kiss had been imagined the ache at the top of Jean's neck tightened around his temples in surprise at Eren reclaiming his hand and leading him somewhere else.

 

Somewhere quieter ended up being Reiner's bedroom if the collage wall of photographs of Reiner at various ages with various other people was anything to go by. The sheer mass of pictures was mildly disconcerting but Jean decided he was certainly drunk enough to ignore all the photographs of a surprisingly unphotogenic kid built like a Hell's Angel.

"I think I might be in need of some medical attention," Jean said in what he could only describe as a seductive voice.

Eren made a noise that Jean could only describe as a very feeble chuckle. Nothing was as clear-cut as it should have been and it would have been nice for Eren to actually laugh or to agree that Jean was extremely seductive when he intended to be. Maybe despite the fact that Jean kind of wanted to vomit and he kind of wanted to sleep forever, he was possibly getting some things that he wanted.

There was something hesitant about the pressure of Eren's mouth but it was enough for Jean for the short moments that the two of them could sit on the Reiner's bed and... kiss. it was nice. It was very, very nice.

The kiss could have done with progressing from 'nice', but that was all it was. Eren's hands at Jean's wrists and a cold stretch of distance between their thighs. Jean was obviously going to have to take the initiative here.  He shuffled forwards, but stopped when he realised Eren was shuffling back.

"Is something the matter?"

"Didn't you want to talk about something?" Eren said. There was something odd about that way Eren was holding Jean's hands in the air between them, but Jean couldn't quite put his finger on it until he realised.

Eren had been a little bit clingy and annoying when he initially started bothering Jean, so maybe he had some weird _thing_ about friends and stuff. Yeah, that had to be it. Maybe Eren had some agreement with Armin and Mikasa to be together at midnight. they had come to find him after all. Jean could totally put two and two together.

"We can go back down in time for the count down," Jean said.

"Okay?"

"We can just be really quick."

"What will?"

There was a moment when Eren was frowning at Jean's hands as they fumbled with Eren's belt buckle. It wasn't a buckle Jean had ever seen before, it was cute. He maybe mentioned it the second before it popped apart beneath his fingers and Eren's hands were squeezing all the blood from Jean's fingers.

"Jean, what's the matter?"

"Your hands are in the way," Jean pointed out as he sat up. Eren didn't loosen his grip or even say anything. Jean tugged until he had both of his hands. He wriggled his fingers a few times and it absolutely did not hurt one iota when the blood seeped back into the capillaries. Now that Eren's hands were not in the way he decided to try again.

"Jean. What is it?"

Jean didn't know what 'it' was supposed to eb either. He was too drunk and his head ached and Marco was kissing someone that he might have even kissed a few hours before Jean confessed to him. It wasn't great. The upside to the night was that one sort of crap year was over and Eren was right next to him, a little bit too pretty for Jean's self-pity, and that alone could have been enough.

"I don't know," Jean mumbled. Something tilted and his mouth was making shapes into the cotton on Eren's shoulder. "I really want you to fuck me. Like, right now."

"Absolutely not."

"Come on, ten minutes," Jean reasoned in a very wriggly way.

There was something very unwriggly about the set of Eren's shoulder and the tightness of his jaw and that wasn't reasonable at all. Things got very wriggly again when Eren tugged at Jean's belt loops and wriggled and wriggled until Jean was trapped in his clothes again and his hands weren't hidden away under green wool. Jean wanted to laugh. It was weird.

 Jean laughed, it was very weird.

He was all alone and then he wasn't.

"Reiner, you have to go," Jean grumbled after twisting his face out of Reiner's pillow - not that he knew quite when his face even got there. "Eren's going to fuck me. "

"What makes you think that?" Reiner's voice was weird. Jean laughed.

"I asked him to."

"Of course you did," Reiner muttered. "He asked me to get you home. I'm a responsible host, so i will even pay the taxi driver even though the fare is a double-rate tonight. Just promise me you won't throw up in the taxi. And maybe leave Eren alone for a little bit. Can you promise me just those two things?"

"Of course," Jean said solemnly as whatever softness had beneath his cheek swooped away and he was struggling to support the weight of his own head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can we just pretend I posted this like 2 weeks ago or something? I should have the next chapter up within a week, so maybe forgive me if you haven't completely forgotten what the context of this fic is - because I do that sometimes and I have no idea what is going on haha.
> 
> This chapter and the next one are sort of... ropey? The chapter after that will be a nicer one and maybe a better one? Who knows.


	10. Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes Eren and Jean a long time to have a conversation where neither of them wants to say much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of italics in this chapter. No idea why.  
> Also a passing mention of a dead hamster

Jean might only have been seconds into consciousness, but he was aware enough to know that something was different. His leg encountered something very hot and very heavy and despite the tiredness still imbued in his bones, Jean was curious as to what exactly had been inconveniencing him.

It was Eren. Eren was being a big, heavy inconvenience.

Jean was about to reason that Eren's conspicuous silence couldn't possibly be due to his untimely demise when he realised that as an inconvenience, Eren was oddly quiet. Jean sat up and pushed back his quilt. He reached forwards and pressed the back of his hand against Eren's neck. His skin was sweltering as it always was, a little bit too similar to the hot clamminess of his flu.  Jean sat up on his knees, more eager to determine something he couldn't have guessed through the fug of sleep. He leaned over to hold his hand just below Eren's nose. He breathed heavily for someone who was so silent. He was alive though, that was all that mattered.

Jean wouldn't have known what to do if Eren had not been alive. He had struggled enough as it was when some stage of primary school was blighted with a dead hamster being presented on _his_ desk for the whole class to mourn. He remembered that quite a few of his classmates cried but all the grief Jean could have shared shrivelled away at the sight of the lifeless lump of fluff sitting an inch away from his Action Man pencil case. He supposed the positive aspect of that situation was that he was not expected to be responsible in any way for the body. Had Eren maybe not been alive at the foot of Jean's bed, Jean would have been one hundred percent responsible and no amount of stationary or illness would have made a difference.

He was just sleeping though. Jean didn't particularly want to wake him up.

It was weird. They hadn't spoken for almost a fortnight and despite being disappointed at the lack of communication from Eren, Jean hadn't done much to change things himself.

Already it was fourteen days into January. Jean's rhythm had been upset by all sorts of things but mostly the fact that Eren was ignoring him. Or he was ignoring Eren. Or they were both ignoring each other but they hadn't quite realised because they were both doing the same thing for unknown reasons. Jean's definitely didn't have a reason besides the fact that he wasn't being spoken to. He didn't want to be a bother or anything. It only made sense.

Except it sort of didn't.

Annie had been quiet for the past two weeks as well. She started the new year with an apology to Jean which he had successfully ignored after a lot of hand waving and groaning until Annie got off the edge of his bed and left his bedroom. The headache that was cleaving his skull in two was not the only reason he had for not wanting to be reminded that Marco had a girlfriend. It certainly didn't help him to foster any feelings of positivity towards the fact.

She had been quiet but strangely kind. She insisted on letting Jean choosing shows to marathon. She would even buy tubes of Pringles for Jean when she went out. The kindness was a bit unusual but Jean was wounded enough not to feel ashamed for just accepting multi-packs of Wotsits and the opportunity to mope unmocked. Stranger yet was that after shoving _the_ bear between them - the bear that welcomed Jean home on New Year's Eve and was some stupidly adorable gesture from Eren just because - when Jean requested it be shoved back into the far corner of his bedroom, Annie really did move it.

He wasn't lamenting the lack of Eren or anything. It didn't even matter that he still hadn't finished eating all of the candy canes. It was just that maybe he had kind of ruined something and made it a little bit rude to act like all the good will of the gift was still valid.

Well, Eren was there now, right on Jean's bed with his phone next to the loose fist of his hand like he fell asleep all at once and whoever he was texting had been awaiting a reply that would never come.

Jean ignored the fact that it was nice that just like almost-normal Eren was around. He was just _there_ , sleeping on the very end of Jean's bed and maybe he wasn't being ignored. He thought more about his hunger and focusing on a solid feeling than the airiness of having no clue why he had missed Eren more than, say, Marco for the first part of the year.

The candy canes shoved in Jean's top drawer, next to Annie's tampons and a couple of lip balms she had donated to him in spite of his consistent refusal, would do for now. Jean was still feeling sleepy and he didn't fancy breaking his neck as he made his way down the stairs just yet. The crinkling of the packet was exceptionally loud and Jean wondered why that was always the case when trying not to disturb somebody.

Quickly, like tearing off a plaster, Jean stripped two candy canes from their wrappers and shuffled back to his bed. Eren didn't even flinch. Maybe the noise hadn't been loud enough.

While waiting for Eren to wake up, Jean had time to Google the difference between candy canes and rock. As interesting as that was, and as tasty the artificial mintiness of the sweets were, it had been two weeks. Maybe the anticipation made Jean's legs a little bit restless and from under the covers they nudged at the sweltering lump that was Eren's belly until he groaned into the quilt and swatted at the nuisance.

"Are you drooling on my bed right now?"

Eren wiped at his mouth and smacked his lips together as he slowly pulled himself up into a more wakeful sitting position. "No," He grumbled.

Neither of the mentioned the obviously darker patch of cotton where Eren's mouth had been mushed into Jean's bed. Well, Jean refrained from mentioning it for all of about three seconds.

"You actually dribbled on my bed. Now I'm going to have to sleep in a pool of your spit."

"You could change your sheets if it's that much of a bother."

Jean's teeth crunched right through the last candy cane he had left. It was exactly like eating rock but Christmassy instead of Summery. Due to the two weeks of silence it seemed Eren's physical warmth wouldn't make a difference to the wintry expression on his face.

"So, like, hi."

"Yeah, hi," Eren sighed.

"How are you?"

"Fine. How are you? I heard you were ill."

"I'm better now," Jean said. He shrugged just to make sure Eren knew he was super calm and collected. As cool as a cucumber. He hadn't even been that ill. His head had simply been crushed under the weight of his own melancholy - or something to a similar effect that would never be revealed to Eren. He was fine. "It has been a while."

"Has it? I hadn't noticed," Eren remarked tightly. He sat up a little bit straighter and crossed his legs. He almost smiled. Jean wondered just how much effort Eren had put into 'not noticing'.

"I'd say it has been a while. Considering I normally couldn't go two minutes without hearing from you, two whole weeks is a long time."

"Well, that's me. I must be nuisance. Armin did sort of try to warn me, I suppose. But I kept pursuing it. Maybe I just have a thing for ugly guys," Eren shrugged. He scoffed bitterly and shook his head, rocking forwards slightly as he glanced up at Jean without holding the gaze. "Sorry. I'm just... This is getting a bit..."

Eren took a deep breath, poking between his crossed legs at the slightly frayed hem at the back of his jeans. When he inhaled again is was slow it drew his shoulders into a straight line and lifted the line of his neck. He fixed himself with an odd sort of smile and said, "You really should have told me you were in love with somebody else."

Jean gaped. He was certain he could use the excuse of the clinging vestiges of his migraine to not give a response here. Maybe. Eren wasn't a complete idiot, unfortunately. He very eloquently said, "Erm."

"Like, I can't believe you actually let me suck your dick when you claim to be in love with somebody else."

The odd smile was still there, the only thing that remained from Eren's spontaneous breathing exercise. His shoulders were rounded and his head drooped, but now the odd smile looked a little bit sad. Or monumentally sad but it wasn't good for Jean to dwell on that.

"I've never claimed to be in love with anyone," Jean said. He was sure to dial down the confident shut-down he was feeling should come here because Eren looked sad and to start rubbing his face in how wrong he was would have been insensitive. 

"I don't know, I think telling a person that you are in love with them definitely counts as claiming to be in love with them. In fact I believe that is the exact same thing."

Well, Jean had another reason to be glad he hadn't just tried to own Eren in some argument he was making up in his mind. He cleared his throat and failed to will the weakness out of his voice when he asked, "Where are you getting your information from? Armin really doesn't know the whole story here."

"Armin knows most of the story though. And you also hinted pretty heavily to me that you'd had some bad news on the day we met. I should have put two and two together after a while, but all I saw was the _opportunity_ , and-" Eren snapped his mouth shut and shrugged at Jean. "Whatever. You like someone else. You _love_ someone else."

Maybe Jean had been staring gormlessly at Eren for too long because Eren, with his eyes and index finger inspecting the hideously eighties pattern of Jean's quilt cover, he said, "Whatever though. It's not like it matters. I'm not- I was never, like, expecting anything or anything. We're, like, friends, right? So, whatever. We can like whoever we want. You can love whoever you want."

Jean was in a desperate scramble to get his 'gorms' back, whatever those were. He needed to actually make some form of response before Eren had this entire conversation without an ounce of Jean's input. As convenient as that would be for someone as lazy as Jean, he had ears and he didn't like where this was going at all. Rather than let Eren steer this entirely sinkable ship right into an iceberg, Jean thought he should take over the helm and try to at least salvage some of the passengers - namely, him and Eren.

"Erm, yeah. We can like whoever we want to like," Jean said. He had thought it was a good introduction but Eren's shrug of response was very sharp and not at all apathetic. "It's not a bad thing to like someone. Or are you telling me that you've never liked anyone before?"

Eren's shrug this time was far more gentle than the last one. If that was the best Jean was going to get, at least he wasn't going to have to hear Eren abort another sentence.

"Liking someone really, really isn't a bad thing," Jean went on. "I mean, it can be, like I learnt, but it's not forever. I mean, I don't like that person that I liked before."

"It's Marco," Eren snapped. "Stop pretending 'that person' is some abstract concept, he's your 'best friend' or whatever, like you're some fourteen year old who always needs to let everyone know who their favourite friend is. Whatever. And if you really think you don't like him anymore I think you should take your stupid engineering degree and _engineer_ yourself a time machine and go back in time to Reiner's New Year's party and tell me if that is the behaviour of someone who is not in love with _Marco_."

"Erm." Jean hated himself for not being able to think of anything to say. He said the only thing that was in his head anyway. "That's not actually what engineering is."

"Ask me if I give a shit."

"Erm," Jean said. Eren definitely gave a shit about something. Jean didn't really want to ask though.

Eren dropped his head into his hands and groaned. "I don't even care. This doesn't even matter. I just... Sometimes I feel like you're trying to get a rise out of me."

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. It's not just you though. Lots of people really. You specifically right now though, well done."

"I'm not trying to make you angry."

Eren didn't say anything. He kept the heels of his hands pressing against his eye sockets and his lips were silently moving between even breaths.

"I was never trying to trick you or anything. When we met, that was just what it was. I'm not going to deny that I did like Marco but just because I did a few months ago it doesn't mean I like him now. I mean, okay, I don't remember everything about the party. I was a massive bell-end, and I am sorry, but I think I was just surprised. I don't... love him."

For all his steady breathing, Eren's voice was strangely tight as he asked, "Are you done yet?"

"I suppose so."

"Good because the whole time you were talking I really wanted you to shut up."

"Right."

Eren went quiet again. He took a deep breath and deepened the bow of his back as his lips began to move again.

"Do you want a drink or anything?" Jean asked, sliding out of his bed quietly.

"Nine hundred and seventy nine," Eren shrugged, "Nine hundred and seventy two, nine hundred and sixty five..."

Jean took a slow walk along the corridor, stopping outside Annie's door. He couldn't hear anything from within so he continued on to the staircase. He kept his gaze down and with each step he took, he grew marginally more pleased with the fact that he hadn't stepped right into some puddle of something or other.

He jumped from the last step and pumped his arms in the air in a silent cheer for making it down three flights of stairs without encountering any questionable substances. In the kitchen, Jean ignored the stacks of food-crusted plates and bowls. He was still recovering from a migraine, why should he burden himself with other peoples' mess?

That was what he initially thought. His scouring of the cupboards yielded nothing sensible to drink from so he had to pick through the crockery metropolis that spanned the kitchen for the cleanest looking glasses. He found a green Coca Cola glass and a reddish Coca Cola glass that must have been from McDonalds a few years ago. They would have to do. He swilled them out under the unreliable glug of the hot tap and squirted some Fairy Liquid onto a sponge before making a poor attempt at washing the both of them. The cold tap managed to drench Jean in an arctic spray. Refreshing as it was, it was unappreciated. He filled the glasses and turned off the tap with a scowl.

By the time Jean got back to his room, Eren was sitting up straight in the middle of Jean's bed.

"Is water alright?"

Eren accepted the glass that was offered to him - the green one because it looked cooler than the reddish one but Jean thought he had to start making the little sacrifices where he could.

"Thank you."

Jean sat beside Eren and sipped his glass of water.

"When we met, I think I was sort of swept up in the moment. I was kind of sad and you were very..."

Eren still hadn't had any water from his own glass. He held it in both of his hands and frowned. "Very what?"

Very pretty, Jean supposed but he wasn't going to say it. "Nothing, you weren't anything."

"Do you want me to start counting again? You're definitely trying to make me angry."

"Nothing, really. It doesn't matter. Don't worry about it."

Eren took a long gulp of water. He wiped the back of his wrist across his mouth and murmured, "Nine hundred and ninety three."

"What's with the counting anyway?"

"It doesn't matter, don't worry about it," Eren mimicked. "We shouldn't talk about this anymore, it's not a good idea. Like I said before, I only came to see if you were alright."

"And then you fell asleep on my bed."

"Whatever. You fell asleep _in_ my bed. Twice!"

"I admit that I got into your bed but I didn't fall asleep."

"Okay, well _I_ was asleep. It really doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter," Jean began slowly, "Why did you mention it?"

"Nine hundred and eighty six."

"Seriously, what's with the counting?" Jean asked.

"Nothing. I count, you don't care who you get your rocks off with. We all have our flaws."

"Oh my god." Amazing. Jean hadn't heard anybody under the age of forty use the phrase 'get your rocks off'. Even then he had been too young to really understand what it meant but now that he was old enough to know what it was a euphemism for, he was also old enough to know that it was a ridiculous term for somebody with any youth to use.

Eren looked very pink but he hadn't started counting. Jean wasn't sure what the counting was for but apparently it was necessary when Jean was laughing hard enough to roll onto his side and clutch at his stomach. Eren drained his glass and put it on the floor with enough force that Jean could hear the action over the sound of his own guffawing. He could admit to himself that it wasn't a pretty sound.

"Wasn't that a song? That whole getting your rocks off thing?" Jean asked breathlessly. He was getting a stitch. He was so unfit that laughing had given him a stitch. He stretched out further along the bed. He was a little bit pathetic.

"I don't know. Maybe it was a song."

"From the seventies or something?"

"Nine hundred and ninety three... Nine hundred and eighty six.... Nine hundred and seventy nine..."

"You're doing it again. The counting. What is that about, really?"

Eren shrugged and Jean reached out to tug at Eren's T-shirt. Eren sighed and flopped backwards onto the bed next to Jean.

"Tell me."

"I'm sure I've already mentioned it before." His head rolled to the side so Eren could glance at Jean. A second and then he looked back up at the ceiling. "Probably in the same round-about way that you mentioned to me that you were in love with somebody. I might have mentioned it at that party."

"That's not fair. I don't remember much of the party."

"You're not fair," Eren said. "You were extremely unfair at the party. It's okay for you because you say that you don't remember it, but I do. I don't know what this is, but it is something that makes me, like, really angry, and it is something that makes you think that it's okay to... Whatever. Whatever."

"How... What did I do? Like specifically."

"I don't really want to talk about it right now. If we really try to get down to this, I don't think counting will be enough for me. It's a bad idea. Some other time though."

Eren swallowed. Jean poked at the clenched fist of Eren's hand until it loosened.

"If there's something I can do to make it up to you, seriously, tell me."

"Can I think about it?"

"Absolutely."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to do a sooner update because I still feel like a bit of a let-down with the massive gaps between chapters. I had most of this one written before the last one so I won't get a better opportunity than this. No idea when the next update will be but I promise it won't take a million years this time.  
> There's a bit where Eren mentions maybe vaguely alluding to something in the same way Jean alluded to being in love with Marco - if you have no idea what that's about that is because I never actually wrote it into a previous chapter, so it's just me messing things up haha.


	11. Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is another not-party and maybe a double-date.

"A few of us are having a little get together," Eren said conversationally, as though Jean had managed to provide than half a garbled answer to the ringing of his phone. "I was wondering if you wanted to come."

"Why are you asking me?"

There was enough silence for Jean to regret opening his mouth before Eren's breath caught briefly and he said, "I was under the impression that we were friends. If we're not, whatever. I thought it might be nice to ask."

"No, no, yeah. We're... friends..." Jean said weakly. They were totally friends. It was just that 'tomorrow' was sort of definitely Valentine's Day. It wasn't a big deal at all. Except the rare occurrence of somebody actually calling him and the fact that after the scramble to answer his phone the call was from Eren had his chest thumping. He shouldn't rush too much next time. Or maybe he should warm up properly... before being surprised.

"Okay. So we're friends. You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"Who else is going to be there?"

"Mikasa, Armin," Eren paused for a moment as though consulting someone for the rest of the list. "Just some people. Um, Reiner decided to commandeer the evening so I suppose his friends are mostly going to be there."

"Great. So a bunch of people I made a dick of myself in front of."

"If that's how you want to see it..."

"I mean, it would be kind of embarrassing," Jean mumbled. He was totally going to say no. He only wanted to let Eren down gently because they were friends. They were friends and friends didn't let each other down. Though Jean had never had a friend like Eren before. "Maybe we can do something another time though."

A sigh. Then, "Not to sound like I am forcing you, but you did say that if there was a way you could make things up to me..."

"So when you said I didn't have to come, you meant you wanted me to say yes regardless."

"I guess so."

Eren sounded a little bit distant from the mouthpiece of his phone - quieter and very tightly restrained in his words. This was so stupid. But Jean still couldn't quite fit together the pieces of the night that was a whole month and a half ago. He wasn't entirely certain what lengths he would have to go to so he could make things up to Eren.

Jean covered up the mouthpiece on his phone as best as he could as he got out of bed and shuffled to Annie's bedroom. She was sitting in the middle of her bed and applying night cream to her face in very small, circular movements with her ring fingers. She glanced up from the mirror she had wedged between her knees and grunted for Jean to state his business.

"You're friends with Reiner, right?"

"Yeah. Unfortunately."

"Are you going to this thing tomorrow?"

"Mikasa's party? Yeah, I suppose so."

"Okay." Jean very carefully uncovered the phone and brought it up to his face. "Yes, I'll come. Is this at your house?"

"Yeah. So I'll see you tomorrow? At five o'clock? or something?"

"See you then."

"Great."

"Yeah," Jean said. He was about to ask whether the conversation was over when his question was answered before it was asked.

"Okay, I'm going now but don't forget: tomorrow at five."

Jean nodded to the silence of the ended call.

"Oh, my god. That was amazing," Annie grinned, still rubbing the last remnants of night cream into her cheeks.

"What was?"

"That was Eren, right? That was amazing, you know, the two of you. Very cute."

"I don't know about that," Jean shrugged. "We used to be okay but I've done _something_ and messed it up."

"It can't all be bad. You'll see him tomorrow won't you?"

 

 

Jean was glad that Annie was with him on the way to Eren's house. He wasn't nervous or anything. He was just jittery enough to almost miss their stop on the bus and he could barely knock on the front door when they got there. Annie sighed, rapped on the door loudly and elbowed Jean afterwards.

"What was that for?"

"You're making me nervous, please stop," Annie muttered.

"Why would I be making you nervous? I'm fine so what's with the elbows? Do you sharpen those things or something?"

"Of course, it's all part of my nightly routine."

"You do that better than the moisturising thing," Jean grumbled as he rubbed at the very tender elbow-print on his forearm.

The door opened before Annie's next torrent of abuse to reveal Mikasa with half a smile and an armful of roses.

"Happy Valentine's Day," she sing-songed as she gave Annie a rose and then Jean. "These weren't my idea by the way. If you want to survive the night I would advise pretending this isn't the dumbest thing you have ever had to sit through."

The weird thing was that she kept the lilting rhythm through the latter part too. Jean only nodded, hoping that he wouldn't have to sing his responses. Annie had no such worries. She tapped the head of the rose to her chin and hummed.

"Nope. I can't even try to guess who thought the flowers would be a nice idea."

Mikasa's mouth twitched. She spoke normally when she said, "I don't know if it is a good hint, but this person's ideas were not limited to roses. Also we're off the hard stuff tonight but there are plenty of raw vegetables and humus to go around."

"If we're all going to suffer through another one of Ymir's cleanses, I swear to god-"

"Before you finish that sentence, bear in mind that we definitely are all supporting Ymir's second cleanse of the year so you will absolutely have to follow through on your threat," Mikasa warned.

" _Second?_ We're like forty days into the year, how did she manage to fail one cleanse and start another?"

"Well, stiff upper lip and all that," Mikasa shrugged, stepping aside to let Annie and Jean into the house.

Clearly, somebody who lived here had a zest for tacky decorations. Following the abundant mess  of elves and fake snow that was Christmas, Valentine's Day had not been ushered in quietly.  Huge pink and red paper hearts had been scattered and layered across the hallway walls. The ceiling was twinkling with rows of pink and white fairy lights that led to the kitchen at the end of the hall.

The living room was adorned with bunting and then layered with yet more fairy lights and flower garlands wherever the decorator felt appropriate - which was far more often than they should have seeing as the room looked more like a fire hazard than anything innocently festive.

"Do you get, like, free electricity or something?" Annie asked flatly.

"Nah, we just don't eat or use hot water," Mikasa shrugged as she deposited the remaining roses in a haphazard heap on the floor next to the door. She then went about introductions. "This should be the last time I have to do this tonight, so it will be a quick one. "I am Mikasa, this is Annie, that one is Jean. On the floor we have Historia-"

A blonde girl with a sharply pointed chin raised both hands and waved at Jean.

"-Ymir-" A vague familiarity lingered around the features of the girl who simply bobbed her head in Jean's direction.

"-Sasha-" A girl with a very tight ponytail stopped chewing on her thumbnail long enough to wave at Jean.

"-Connie-" And Jean already knew Connie but he supposed Mikasa was being thorough for the benefit of the group.

"-Armin, aaaaaand, you know the rest."

"Oi!" Reiner loudly protested, looking to both his quiet housemate and Eren who had been lumped in with him as 'the rest'. "You'll regret that when it is time for presents."

"Presents?" Jean asked cautiously as he settled into the circle between Connie and Annie. Apparently just having Annie between himself and Reiner was not enough because his eardrum felt very close to blowing as Reiner loudly explained,

"We all came because we all love Mikasa very much."

"Oh?"

"Everyone forgot my birthday so they decided we were all going to get together but it had to happen on Valentine's day," Mikasa said with a  roll of her eyes.

"I didn't forget," Eren grumbled.

"If you forgot my birthday I would have made sure you never got to see another one of yours."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know it was your birthday," Jean said very bravely.

"Don't worry, I wasn't expecting you to know," Mikasa said cheerily. "But it was apparently really important for you to be here. Your present to me can be not acting like an idiot."

"O-okay. I'll try not to act like an idiot," Jean said quietly. The barely restrained titters let Jean know well enough that at least half of the people present thought that would be a massive challenge for him. He didn't usually think not being an idiot was a challenge but in light of recent events, Jean was quietly in agreement. He was an idiot.

 

Jean vaguely remembered somebody using the word party to describe what the evening would be. The look he gave Annie was  in no way an accusing glare but she reacted as though it was one and thumped Jean in the arm to let him know that there was no way this would become a discussion. That was absolutely fine, aside from the temporary loss of his right arm. It's not like he needed to keep holding the stupid rose any more. They were just sitting around talking and eating crisps and drinking fizzy pop. At least there was no way Jean could make a prat of himself.

Mikasa had busied herself with braiding friendship bracelets for the people seated closest to her in the circle. Jean wondered whether or not the present from Reiner and his housemate - Bertholdt, Jean managed to guess from the conversation, relieved that he never had to scale the impossible wall of asking for a name he probably should have known well before this point - was meant to be a joke or not. Reiner handed the scruffily wrapped box over with sombre sincerity, though Bertholdt opted for blushing and averting his eyes, and when Mikasa opened the present she wiped away an imaginary tear and very seriously said that the seven year-old inside her would appreciate it.

It looked as though the twenty-one year old in Mikasa was enjoying the friendship bracelet kit as she meticulously selected charms for each person she made one for. She had moved a few times around the circle, brow furrowed in concentration as she bowed her head and tied  red and white threads at Historia's wrist. Ymir got herself a yellow and blue bracelet for the trouble of pretending not to be bothered at the extra body positioned between her and Historia.

"When am I getting mine?" Reiner whined as he eyed Eren's yellow, green and red bracelet.

"I'm saving yours until last because it will be the most special," Mikasa said in the way people carelessly made promises to children.

"But all the shit colours will be left," Reiner grumbled. He didn't raise his voice enough to elicit a response from Mikasa and Jean supposed this was old hat for them.

Within half an hour of being at the not-party Jean had learnt a few things about certain people. Mostly the fact that more people than expected wanted to go old-school when they ran out of other things to do. He supposed that he had to be involved in some hybrid game of Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare at some point in his life - the grand old age of twenty happened to be the time.

Jean wasn't sure that Eren had ever played anything like this either because he was almost naked aside from his underwear, the friendship bracelet from Mikasa, Annie's bra and Reiner's shirt which had been donated in some kinder dares.

Eren's incompetence aside, Jean had learnt that Sasha would literally do anything if she was dared to do it, though her daring may have just been to the confines of whatever anybody could think of; Connie was a bit more reserved as he drew the line at licking Reiner's foot, which Sasha, Eren and Historia had all done at Ymir's request; Ymir was apparently fond of daring people to lick Reiner's feet but was quite mysterious herself as she had never picked truth even once; from the tame dares and questions, and also the answers to other people's questions, it was clear that Historia was loved by all.

There might have been a few things that Jean still would have liked to find out the answer to. There were too many things that he wanted to know and he didn't think asking Eren out-right would do the trick - not when Eren could decide he was sick of having a friend like Jean. So Jean had to wait until the game gave him the chance to at least get the gist of things.

The bottle pointed at Eren once again and Annie almost looked sorry that she had brought this upon him. She soldiered on with the game anyway.

"Truth or dare?"

"I can't stand to somehow forfeit another dare so I'll go with truth."

"An easy one then: have you ever been in a romantic relationship before."

"No," Eren answered quickly, his fingers twitching at the hem of the shirt Reiner had donated to him.

"Really?" Annie asked, leaning forwards and widening her eyes. Mikasa's jaw tightened. Jean was certain there was a momentary psychic link between himself and Mikasa because he could hear somebody counting in his head. Annie had rolled onto her knees and Jean could see a faint blush rise in Eren's cheeks under Annie's scrutiny. She was kind enough to inflame his face more when she clarified, "You've never been in a romantic relationship ever? In your whole life?"

"Never," Eren mumbled at his knees.

Annie's 'wow' wasn't a solo effort.

Jean was sort of glad that he could say he didn't join in with that particular party activity. He would have answered the question the same way too. It wasn't a weird thing to admit. So what if he was twenty and had only ever had those pretend girlfriends that only ever fit the role in name. No matter how desperate Jean was to not sound like a loser, he would absolutely not count two girls that he held hands with and awkwardly sat near mutual friends who were kissing very loudly and sloppily as relationships.

"Sorry to break the rules a bit here, but, have you not even been on a date? Not even one of those pretend primary school ones?"

"When I was fifteen a teacher bribed me to go to my anger management sessions with McDonalds and that was probably the closest I ever got," Eren shrugged. His expression was very carefully blank until Reiner guffawed loudly at the answer, winking at Eren when he looked up with a small smile of his own.

That just sounded bizarre and not at all close to a date but Jean supposed that was the point.

"Okay, spin it now. I won't back down if you make it land on me again," Connie said, clapping his hands together. He was only second to Eren in being bad at dares, evidenced by the fact that he was wearing most of Eren's clothes over the top of his own. Nobody in the circle was particularly good at thinking of dares or forfeits, or even truth questions, but Jean didn't particularly mind that. It simply meant that he would mostly be safe from embarrassing himself again.

And maybe it was Kismet that following a dare to down a jug of gravy - a jug full of undissolved granules and lukewarm water because it was so hastily thrown together - Jean had his turn to spin the bottle and it landed on Reiner.

"Truth or dare, Reiner?" Jean asked calmly.

"Truth," Reiner practically scoffed. It had become apparent that Reiner thought himself untouchable, if nothing but a presence to worsen the game for others, for example the whole foot-licking thing that he had no qualms about.

Jean cleared his throat and made as much eye contact with Reiner as his nerve would allow. He said, "So, tell us this: what's the deal with you and Eren?"

Reiner fixed Jean with a hard stare. Though it shamed him to admit it, he had to drop his own gaze. It might have had something to do with the fact that Reiner was twice his size and could probably throw him through a wall if the feeling ever took him - his very visibly thick chest was enough to hamper any accumulation of courage. Reiner feigned a thoughtful hum and Jean contented himself with making sure he avoided Eren's eyes. Armin - ever disappointed Armin - was fair game. For once Armin wasn't casting disparaging looks Jean's way. He only looked surprised. He surreptitiously glanced over Eren's bowed head at Mikasa who was very carefully blank.

Well, if Jean had to be a party-pooper he didn't have a massive problem with that.

"He's a great guy and I am glad I am friends with him."

"Yeah, but-"

Reiner quickly put a stop to Jean's prompt. "There are some things that aren't up for public discussion and this is one of them. You only need to know that I am behind Eren all the way for whatever he wants to do, even if it involves nosy bastards like you."

And. Well. That was... definitely not in the spirit of the game. But Jean didn't really dwell on it too much aside from catching Connie glancing around the circle cautiously and smiling a little nervously when his gaze met Reiner's. Reiner spun the bottle with enough force for it to spin right into Armin's shin and after a half-pained gasp he handed it back for a retry.

Reiner stared straight at Jean as he spun the bottle the second time. Something karmic must have been on Reiner's side because the mouth of the bottle pointing at Jean seemed like the universe had intended it from the start. He had to give up on wanting things from the world.

"Well, well, Jean. Truth or dare?" Reiner asked. He hardly blinked and there was not a wrinkle of change in his expression as he awaited Jean's answer.

Jean couldn't remember the last time he had been this fucked. There was no way out of this situation. Obviously, no matter what he chose, Jean was going to get stuck with some stupid 'truth' request asking why he was such a prick or something to that effect. He kept his sigh quiet.

"Truth, I suppose."

"What's the deal with you and Eren?"

Jean probably should have seen that one coming. It was an obvious question, especially after Jean had asked the exact same of Reiner. Yet he hadn't anticipated it and he had not even started to formulate some sort of reply. This wasn't some mysterious Reiner thing - Jean wouldn't be able to say something vaguely threatening to gloss over whatever his _feelings_ were. There was no cover for whatever his feelings were and even if he did make up something like that it was not as though he really had a reason.

"He's... we're like... friends..."

The answer was feeble enough to have Jean wincing at his own stupid cowardice. Though it was enough to have Eren clambering to his feet and retreating to the kitchen. Jean had certainly pooped all over this party. Reiner and Mikasa followed after Eren, in that order, and Armin almost smiled at Jean.

"I think you could have done a lot better than that, Jean."

 

"What the hell was that?" Annie asked in a hushed voice. The conversation might have been semi-private but Jean feared for the safety of his privates, audience or not.

"Nothing. I just don't want to assume things."

"The only thing that anybody is assuming right now is that you are a tosser."

"Right, thanks. I got that already. The question surprised me, you know? Like, I probably wouldn't have had a good answer before but right now it is even worse because we've taken a few steps back. But I wasn't wrong, was I? We're friends."

"Yeah, okay. W-w-w-we, erm, I think that maybe some might suppose that, erm, me and Eren are, erm, hmm, maybe, like, possibly f-f-fr-friends? Maybe."

"Shut up," Jean hissed, slapping Annie's arm sharply. "I didn't sound that bad."

"You're right, you sounded so much worse than that. I thought you liked him, You are punching well above your weight with him."

"Shut up. I don't know. He's okay. What am I supposed to do?"

"Go and get my bra back off him or something," Annie said as if it was simple. It was not at all simple and Jean tried not to make it obvious that he was wussing out of making eye contact with Mikasa as they narrowly avoided a collision in the doorway.

Jean dithered for a moment outside the kitchen - mostly because that was where the voices were coming from. That was where Eren had gone except it was probably a completely inappropriate time to interrupt and make himself known. He crossed his fingers and listened for a good opportunity.

"I really meant it when I said I was sorry," Said Reiner, so uncharacteristically that Jean found himself straining his ears to hear the nuances of genuine grovelling. So maybe Jean wasn't the only one who was making a pig's ear of things.

"It's fine."

"I know but like Mikasa said, I am an idiot. I shouldn't have been bothered by Jean -"

"Yeah, I get it, Reiner. You're sorry for asking a stupid question but it's hardly a rare thing around here."

"Are you saying I ask stupid questions?" A few seconds of pointed silence before a snort and a muttered, "Fuck off."

Jean bowed his head closer to the door but he struggled to hear anything aside from the whoosh of the running tap and the clinking of glasses before Reiner spoke again.  

"Can I ask you something?"

"Stupid question," Eren muttered lowly.

"If somebody asked you what is going on between you and Jean, what would you have said?"

"We're friends," Eren said sharply.

"But you don't want to be."

"Being friends is fine," Eren said in a way that brooked no argument. At least Jean would have accepted that the tone left no room for further discussion. Reiner obviously had some wiggle room.

"Just because you have gone through life as a friend it doesn't mean that nobody thought you were more than that."

Jean accepted that maybe Reiner was very skilled with what wiggle room he did have because his words sounded very sweet and delicate. It was enough that with the right angles and lighting it would have been the perfect line to precede the perfect sort of kiss to suck all the sugariness of future words right out of his mouth. Jean didn't particularly want to hear too much of that so he backed away until he was at the other end of the hall, standing at the front door.

It was alright for people who were suave and able to eloquently express the sentiments that other people wanted to hear. The closest he had ever gotten to eloquence was a well-executed fart-joke when he was fifteen. Things had gone downhill from there. It was a shame that Jean hadn't met Eren when they were fifteen. Even if that was the time in his life when he was awkwardly mumbling his agreement that some girl from their form had blowjob-lips - whatever _those_ were when they were at home - and picking girls' names at random when asked if he fancied anybody, Jean would have probably been able to make a much better impression on Eren. Totally.

Jean wasn't cool and older, carved from granite and full of stories from a gap-year well spent. He wasn't even some malcontent genius who always had some rhetorical criticism of anything and everything. Jean wasn't daring or imaginative or selfless or funny, or anything that could be ascribed to any one of the people gathered in Eren's living room. He was painfully woeful and that might have only been because of his under-developed personality. What had he done since his popularity peak at fifteen? Besides complaining about everything and lamenting the fact that everything was _just_ too difficult to reasonably expend any effort on, Jean hadn't anything to show for himself.

At least when he was fifteen years old and pretending to care about impressing girls he could at least do that well. At least when he was fifteen years old there wasn't much of an expectation on him beyond wearing Nike trainers and owning the latest iPod and advising people to go to the Chinese take-away to buy chips instead of the chip shop next door because Chinese chips were the best at lunchtime.

Eren wore slip-on plimsolls from Primark and he didn't really listen to music. It was doubtful that Jean could impress Eren in the ways that had been familiar for five years.

It all seemed a little bit silly now - a late realisation since it turned out that he did in fact want to impress Eren a little bit.

There wasn't much that Jean could do and he still needed to retrieve Annie's bra and he desperately wanted Eren not to be kissing anybody that wasn't him.

The kitchen door opened a crack and yellow smudged the walls and floor and the fairy lights were small and dim. Pointless really, as they had been all along, but the sentiment was clear. The door opened wider and despite the wide shadow from the kitchen the fairy light remained uselessly small and dull.

Reiner's face was blank as he emerged from the kitchen wearing his shirt again, though amusement flickered across his countenance when he spotted Jean all the way at the other end of the hallway.

"Sorry," he said loudly, sarcastically, and rolled his eyes.

"Okay," Jean said quietly because he wasn't totally sure that Reiner was even speaking to him. The eye-roll might have been a clue but it was hard to tell just who Reiner was talking to at any one time seeing as his voice carried too well. Reiner stuck his fingers up at Jean and well, that wasn't much of a clue but it was all the confirmation Jean was going to get. "Me too. I'm sorry."

"Good luck," Reiner said in a low voice. He opened the living room door a fraction, sighed, and slipped into the room without another glance in Jean's direction.

"Thanks," Jean muttered to the empty hallway. Right. So maybe Jean had something of a chance.

Jean moved slowly on his way to the kitchen. He knew there was no point in dragging his feet but he couldn't help it. In the kitchen, Eren was sniffing a tub of coleslaw.

"I'm not eating it," Eren said quickly, the stunned guilt in his face quickly turning to surprise as he noticed Jean. "Oh. It's you."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Whatever. There's no need to apologise for that. I'm just being a bad host, I suppose. Did you want a drink or something?"

"No," Jean said. He spread his hands. "I just wanted to talk?"

"Okay," Eren said. He put the coleslaw in the fridge and leaned against the fridge door expectantly.

"I'm sorry about earlier."

Eren groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. He kept going until his head was bowed and there was no more air in his lungs. He straightened up and folded his arms against his bare chest.

"It has come to my attention that it seems like I cared about the fact that you said we were friends," Eren scowled. "Me leaving the room had nothing to do with whatever dick-measuring contest you and Reiner were having."

"So you don't care about the fact that I said we were friends?"

"Not really. We are friends."

"And it doesn't matter that I sounded like an idiot because I couldn't spit it out?"

"Not at all."

"So we're... alright?"

"Yes," Eren said emphatically. Jean moved away from the kitchen door and closer to the middle of the room - closer to the fridge and Eren. Annie's bra was bright purple and very noticable. Hopefully he wouldn't forget it here but he needed to pay more attention to Eren before him - Eren who was saying they were  okay.

"I sort of miss you a lot," Jean mumbled at the space between their feet. "You used to text me all the time and we'd see each other whenever just because. And now... I know this was mostly my fault, and if I am being really honest, I know that from the start I have been awful to you. I am really sorry."

"You're sorry?" Eren repeated flatly. And also incorrectly.

" _Really_ sorry."

"You're really sorry?"

"Really, really, _really_ sorry," Jean nodded. He took a step closer and Eren was doing a shoddy job at biting back a smile. "Can we be the sort of friends who see each other all the time again?"

Eren shrugged. "I don't know about that."

Just one more step and Eren was hemmed against the fridge, head tilted up to make up for their difference in height and hands skittering over assorted magnets.

"I'm not just asking because you are the most attractive person who has ever deigned to bless me with their existence. I really have missed having you around."

"You are the worst," Eren groaned, almost letting his quiet smile develop into something more.

"I really am. When you're around it sort of balances out."

"I don't know. All of a sudden having me around has made you awfully sycophantic."

"Sorry. I just really like spending time with you," Jean said to the magnet over Eren's shoulder - a garishly ugly thing comprising of orange ceramic fluff and googly eyes.

"Me too."

 

Jean could barely remember the last time he and Marco had so much as exchanged text messages, so seeing him for anything other than a shared lecture was rarely trodden territory. Jean had been struggling, since the confession, but since then he had found other things to worry about, namely Eren. At some vague point Jean had stopped wondering whether Marco would be interested in hanging out for some reason. He had instead been wondering whether it was alright for him and Eren to skirt around whatever they were.

Funnily enough, a month or so after the start of Marco's absence from Jean's mind, he decided to reclaim his stake in Jean's awareness and also make a bit more of a mess of the whole Eren thing.

**Are you busy this Saturday?**

_probably not_

**Can we meet up? I have somebody I'd like you to meet.**

Once upon a time, Jean might have peed his pants in excitement - surely that meant something good. A quick consultation with Armin confirmed Jean's suspicions. Jean wasn't sure if his sudden awareness of Mina was public knowledge. He might have been fine springing a girlfriend on Jean, or he might genuinely have forgotten that he hadn't mentioned her to Jean. Either way it would have been completely awkward. It already was awkward and they were only texting about meeting up.

Jean sort of had an idea after some further texts with Armin - suddenly helpful rather than his usual negativity. It was an idea that he didn't think too deeply about.  He sent out a series of texts very quickly and ignored his phone after the shakiest of arrangements had been made.

 

Eren was the last to arrive at Chiquitos. He was wearing a pair of obscenely tight jeans and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Jean had never really paid much attention to Eren's forearms before but he was regretting it now. If he had been more aware he wouldn't have been so surprised by how good they looked. Jean had already paid plenty of attention to Eren's face so he was less surprised by the dangerous expression that Eren was wearing. It was unfamiliar but not exactly unexpected.

Jean stepped a little bit away from the asinine chatter from Marco and Mina to receive Eren. The formal introduction of Jean and Mina had been sufficiently awkward. He had almost forgotten that he had sort of made this worse by not giving Eren any information about the evening beyond ' _some of us are going out for a meal on Sat you in?_ '

Eren hadn't asked who 'us' was, though it was doubtful he expected this to be it.

"Hello," Eren said warily.

"Hi. You look good."

Eren looked Jean up and down and pursed his lips. "Yeah."

It wasn't that Jean had hoped for a returned compliment. He had just hoped to get some reaction that was more akin to Jean dropping his jaw and temporarily losing the ability to think straight when Eren put just enough effort into his appearance. Like, as friends. He totally wanted Eren to think he was hot as a friend.

"Is this everyone?"

"Sort of," Jean said. Eren's frown deepened and Jean hesitantly admitted, "Yes."

"Okay. I've never actually met Marco before. This is weird. Why are we doing this?"

"Just some friends hanging out."

"If you haven't noticed, that is Marco's girlfriend and she happens to be the reason you had some weird meltdown."

"That was months ago."

"So now you're suddenly fine with this?"

"I'll be honest; not really. I kind of needed some moral support though so can you please be nice?"

Eren frowned even deeper than before. His lower lip jutted out and he grumbled, "I'm always nice."

 

Approximately four minutes into some small talk Eren disproved his theory that he was always nice. At least they were seated and poring through the menu and absently nibbling popcorn. Marco and Mina were deeply considering their options while Eren chose their distraction as prime time to kick Jean's shin hard.

"Is this a double date?" Eren hissed as he leaned towards Jean's shoulder. Jean shrugged and mumbled an apology for almost cracking Eren's nose with his shoulder. He didn't say anything else though. He could neither confirm or deny that he had tricked Eren into coming on a double date with him. "Jean!"

"No time to worry about that now, we're here."

" I am going to kill you."

"Please don't," Jean said through gritted teeth, catching Marco's eye with a smile that probably looked more of a grimace.  

"Okay," Eren said sweetly from behind his menu. "I am going to kill myself and when I am reincarnated it will be as a spider and I will lay a million spider eggs in your toothbrush."

"You're going to be reborn as a female spider?"

"Is everyone ready to order?" The cheery waitress asked with her pencil and pad in hand.

"I'm ready," Eren said sunnily without missing a beat. "How about you two?"

Apparently Jean was the only one who was not ready to order and he quickly scanned the menu for something to say to the waitress. She looked so cheerful and happy with the world and if anybody could change that it would be Jean bumbling over an order he wasn't even half-certain of. His eye caught something easy on the menu just as he heard Eren ordering something with pulled-pork because apparently he loved gimmicks.

Jean realised a little too late that he was staring at Eren and contemplating menu choices. The waitress prompted Jean uncertainly and Jean had to clear his throat and act like it was totally normal for him to be doing that. "I'll just have a chicken fajita please."

"Certainly, sir. I'll be back in a moment with your drinks."

Jean didn't remember ordering a drink but nobody else seemed nonplussed by the waitress's announcement so some arrangement musty have been settled on.

 

 

"So, I hear you're doing nursing," Marco said, sipping his glass of wine with all the practice of a middle-aged man locked into middle-management. Jean had no clue how Marco would have heard that because he certainly hadn't mentioned it. In fact, any time a conversation veered too close to the territory of Eren, Jean would put a stop to it by loudly asking something completely unrelated or shushing Marco so that they could listen to some pearl of wisdom that their lecturers were dropping. These days he didn't even need to kick Armin under the table so often these days as he went along with Jean's clumsy topic changes quite freely.

"Y-yes, I am."

"That's really cool. So, what sort of things does that involve?"

Eren glanced at Jean uncertainly but he didn't find whatever he was looking for. He cleared his throat and straightened up in his seat. "It's nice. I was always in placements in hospitals before but this semester I am working as a district nurse. I have been to a few schools and patched up a few grazed knees and made up about a million cold compresses. It's actually the nicest semester I have had, so I hope I can find something quickly. Erm, yeah. So, you do engineering, right?"

"Yeah," Marco grinned across the table before nudging Mina with her elbow just to make sure his glee encompassed the entire table. "I'm sure you hear enough about that from Jean though."

"Oh. Okay. Mina, I didn't catch what you were doing?"

"Music production. I hope to be able to score video games, so it really is fun. Last year I got a place on a trip to Italy where I did a placement in a studio over there."

"That's so cool!"

"Thanks," Mina said, pinkly pleased. "I mean, I'm not saving lives or anything like that."

Eren shook his head and gulped at his water. He rearranged the cutlery on his plate, nudging the knife from between the prongs of the fork and straightening the line of them. "Yours sounds really cool too, like imagine composing music, right."

"I suppose so, though I suspect we might be the only two at the table who have any idea what we might do after uni," Mina stage-whispered.

Eren chuckled and apparently neither Marco nor Jean could refute Mina's claim.

 

"This is so nice," Mina said loudly with a bit too much ruddiness in her face. "We don't have any couple friends. We have to keep doing this, I think I love you both so much."

"You still don't have any," Eren muttered under his breath. Luckily, both Mina and Marco were a little bit too close to drunk to hear that beneath Jean's hopeful save of, "Absolutely."

"You can be, like, our first couple friends _and_ our first gay couple friends. I doubt we'll be getting anymore friends who are couples but it's nice that you guys are the first, even if you might be the last, you know?" Marco said, a little nonsensically, entirely inebriated. Somehow both Marco and Mina had managed to get sloshed whole eating a pretty sizeable meal. Or maybe it only took them  getting a little bit merry for them to unleash whatever transient thoughts materialised in their heads.

"I'm not gay," Eren said to the dessert menu.

"You're not?" Marco asked looking wholly too upset by that statement. Mina was busy mopping up the House Red that had somehow made its way out through her nose.

"No, I'm bi," Eren said, his finger circling a picture of something captioned Mexican Mess, the cacophony of chocolate and red berry hues looking like far too much to eat after Eren struggled to finish his main course.

It was easier to process what Eren was pointing out on the menu that to process this brand new information. It wasn't the most off-the-wall thing for Eren to say, but it was certainly a surprise. Or maybe Jean shouldn't have assumed things. He had to try to make sure though. Very casually he said, "What?"

"Doesn't that still count though? Like you're in a gay relationship, right?"

"No."

"What," Jean repeated because Eren probably hadn't heard him. He would have liked to be heard because maybe he could pretend he wasn't as unprepared to hear this as Marco was.

"Obviously it doesn't still count, Marco," Mina said rolling her eyes and acting for all the world as though she hadn't dribbled wine out of her nose and all down her front. "Like that acronym, erm. LGBTQI... I might be missing a few but they all mean separate things, Marco. Let me Google it and I'll show you."

"I knew that, but-"

"Seriously, what?"

"-I've never thought too much about it."

Jean was momentarily able to stop repeating himself when he heard what Marco had said. And it was so obvious that Marco didn't think much about anything unless he thought it was important. He hadn't thought that rejecting Jean might be an important thing that would change things - clearly. Otherwise he might have been a little bit more sensitive. Or Jean was being too sensitive. Maybe none of this was important at all. Jean still glanced across the table and agreed, "Of course you haven't."

Perhaps Marco picked up the subtle nuance of 'You don't think any of this applies to you so why would you think about it? You basically broke my heart but of course you didn't think about that either because apparently as long as I had your support any guy would have done even though it had always been _you,_ idiot _!_ ' Marco might finally have gotten a clue because scarlet streaked across his cheeks and in some moment of sobriety he opted for squinting at Mina's phone rather than looking in Jean's direction.

 

The coffee and desserts seemed to help Marco and Mina sober up enough to call for a taxi. Jean followed Eren onto the bus and tried not to be too defensive when the twelve reasons he was a colossal prick were being outlined.  There was no point in being indignant about it because it was difficult to disagree with the facts.

"I still can't believe you did that to me," Eren said, barely a breath after saying he would stop talking about how pissed off he was. he leaned across Jean to press the bell for the bus to stop and he nudged Jean out of his seat.

"I'm sorry."

"You're really not though. You've said sorry, like, a million times since we left and that's kind of messed up. You told them we were in a relationship, like why would you? How weird can you get?"

"Was I at least a little bit endearing?" Jean asked, swaying with the movement of the bus before it slowed and approached Eren's bus stop."

"Not at all. Don't do that to people. You didn't even warn me."

"Sorry."

"I don't want to hear people saying what a cute couple we make when you literally never stop telling me how much of a good _friend_ I am to you."

"I really am sorry."

"Shut up, it doesn't matter. I really will stop this time because I am making myself angrier and I need to go to sleep."

The bus doors hissed open and as they alighted Jean said, "Should we try counting together?"

"I will actually punch your lights out."

Jean tried not to laugh too obviously because he didn't doubt that Eren would follow through on that threat. Eren really did stop talking for the entirety of the walk to his house. It was a fresh night and they both walked with their hands in their pockets. Eren might have been getting himself worked up but at least he was kind enough to point out a pile of dog poo for Jean to avoid. 

Once home, Eren threw himself onto his bed and groaned. It had not been a quiet affair going up the flights of stairs to Eren's bedroom but once the door was slammed shut he suddenly calmed. Jean gingerly sat on the edge of Eren's bed and started unlacing Eren's shoes.

"I hate you!" Came Eren's muffled scream.

"Sorr-"

Eren rapidly twisted onto his side and kicked his foot out of Jean's grip and his shoe flicked off onto the floor. "Say you're sorry one more time, I dare you."

"No, I wasn't going to say that. Erm, so you're bi? Like bisexual or something?"

"Not that it matters, but yes. But it matters very much that I hate you right now."

Jean reached for Eren's other foot and watched to make sure he wouldn't get another kick. Eren just scowled at him and flopped back onto the bed.

"Like you said, not that it matters, but why didn't you tell me?"

"Hmm?"

Jean lost his nerve for a teeny tiny moment until Eren leaned up to fix him with a glare. "Like, you said you're bi but it's just weird that I never knew before now."

"It's not like you need to know," Eren said flippantly as he dropped his head back onto his pillow.

"Well no, but before you said that you had never been in a relationship before but now you're saying this and I was just sort of wondering if that thing about relationships has changed since last month."

"Are you asking me if I've had a girlfriend since Mikasa's birthday thing?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Let me get this straight, you're allowed to ask questions about things but you can't even warn me that you're going to use me so it looks like you are over some straight boy."

"I am over him," Jean protested weakly. "But, I mean there is nothing to get over. I just didn't want to go alone."

"Whatever."

Eren reclaimed both his feet and rolled over so there was a sausage of space beside him.

"I suppose I've never even kissed someone who wasn't you or whatever," Eren mumbled.

"Oh."

"I don't have much experience with it, so I barely even remember what kissing felt like. I think you should refresh my memory."

Jean inched closer to Eren but stopped while he still had some room to dodge. "Aren't you angry at me?"

"Very angry. I might be less angry if you kissed me now."

Jean licked his lips and watched the slight clench of Eren's jaw. He could do this. They had kissed before and Jean definitely wanted to do it again. He dipped his head and his mouth was just a breath away from Eren's. He only needed to press forwards bare millimetres and that was their kiss. Except the emerald acceptance was just too much to take for granted.

Eren was holding his breath. At this rate this would be as far as they got.

"Do you want to, erm, finish the job?" Jean suggested quietly.

Eren huffed against Jean's lips, the tiniest fraction of a laugh as he tipped his face up just right and it was okay. Jean could hold Eren's shoulder and it was fine and he could lean in closer and it was fine and he could hasten the brush of their lips and it was fine and Eren sighed, slow content.

Jean was sort of done for.

Until Eren gently pushed at Jean's jaw and with the gift of space whispered, "This is nice but I'm tired and still a little bit mad at you. Will you be okay to get home?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think we're all aware that I am terrible at updating but I think this chapter is a bit longer than the last few, so hopefully that makes up for it.


	12. Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone has a birthday and someone else probably does too.

"So this thing about Eren," Jean began steadily. Armin raised his eyebrows high enough for them to be obscured by his fringe. The familiarly unimpressed expression was in no way obscured though.

"What about it? You don't have any weird plans, do you?"

"What? No, no! Being bi is totally a thing, I just wondered whether he had spoken to you about it," Jean mumbled. Armin paused, frowning, and he glanced at Marco who was slumped over his desk and probably hungover.

"He's not really spoken to Mikasa and I about it. He told us but that was it really."

"Oh right."

"Are you doing anything with him today?" Armin asked in a strange change of subject.

"Hm? Yeah. This afternoon we're going to hang out or whatever. But even if you've never really spoken about it, you would know if he had a girlfriend or anything, right?"

Armin smiled in a way that made Jean worry a little bit. He sighed and said, "I'm sure that I don't have to remind you that I live with Eren in that house that must have been made from cardboard. The walls are very thin and Eren is very loud when he is angry. It's fine if he wants to stomp up the stairs and risk plummeting to his death in the abyss - he'd have to pay for the damage. What both Mikasa and I were less than pleased with was the constant roaring and yelling at you because you are a stupid idiot whilst we were trying to sleep. What I gleaned from the situation was that you are a prick and he hates you."

"He doesn't actually hate me though, does he?"

"Unfortunately not, but-" Armin glanced at Marco on his other side before leaning in to Jean to whisper, "He doesn't like being used."

"I know. I didn't mean to."

Their lecturer for the morning cleared her throat and Armin very quickly whispered, "You don't have any competition if that is what you're pissing your pants about."

 

 

 

Considering it was only Monday, Jean's week was going quite well. He had accidentally fallen into step beside Marco and Armin and wasn't able to change his pace to make meeting Eren more of a private thing. Not that things had been particularly private. It was sort of lucky in a way because Marco quickly dove down to fetch Jean's wallet after it fell out of his pocket. After a few seconds of staring at his phone, Jean realised that Eren hadn't text him for once and he was half-frozen wondering whether it was up to him to make their plans to meet a bit more concrete than "see you after my morning lecture."

And then Armin elbowed him, hard like he had taken lessons from Annie in appendage-wielding, and said, "What are you doing? He's waiting for you."

And he was, just a few yards ahead, popping in and out of existence behind droves of dawdling students and their much speedier classmates. Jean remembered how Eren looked a lot of times with his eyes closed. He remembered the rosy-cheeked countenance from a time Eren couldn’t stay awake for the entirety of a film, and the tacky, damp eyelashes from Eren’s drowsy malady, and the still fitfully frowning face when he napped at the end of Jean’s bed. This time was different even from all of those times. It was a warm Spring and the bench Eren was lounging on was directly in the sunlight, his face tilted up as cheerfully as a sunflower in bloom. 

Jean took one jerky step forward and he was certain he heard Marco laugh and quietly comment to Armin. Armin made no efforts to keep his reply quiet when he said, “Well, obviously. Have you seen him?”

‘ _Him’_ must have been Eren because there was a lot to look at. Jean couldn’t bring himself to look at much else aside from the sharp line of Eren’s jaw, the possibility of an abrasive prickle because Eren wasn’t all too skilled with a razor, just the thought of that was enough for Jean to slicken his approach and try to look like he might be anywhere near the same level as Eren.

Basking in the sunlight looked so good on Eren, Jean was already anticipating the just-kissed glow of bronze under the light as the harsh brightness faded into cooler oranges. He could not quite recall the first night they met, and how Eren had looked then, all he had were the hopes for a refresher in the Summer. There was a fresh breeze in the air which deterred Jean from removing his jacket. But seeing Eren relaxing as though he was experiencing the dizzying heat of summer was enough to tempt Jean’s hands from his pockets.

Jean flopped down onto the bench and Eren twitched momentarily but he didn’t react beyond that until Jean prodded the backpack between them and asked, “Is this new?”

“What?” Eren flinched and curled up all at once before relaxing when he saw Jean beside him. He laughed and nodded, flushing with a less comfortable heat. “Yeah, I got it today.”

“I like it,” Jean said. He had the distinct feeling he had started this all wrong because even if the bag had not been a buffer between them there was a cushion of space that seemed insurmountable, or perhaps Jean didn’t think it was something to be pressed and conquered.  

“Hey,” Eren said casually as though was not still recovering from a surprise. He pressed the back of his hands to his cheeks and hesitantly chuckled.

“Hi,” said Jean as though he had not been almost frantic in the absence of Eren.  

“Are you ready to go?” Eren asked.

Jean wasn’t sure. He maybe wanted to just sit with Eren for a while, watching him languidly stretching on the bench despite the fact that clouds were rolling in with the winds. It was a bright enough day but Jean had woken up early enough to catch the weather forecast – possibly because his body clock was finally acclimatising to early starts on Mondays or possibly because he didn’t want bad weather to ruin today – and he knew it would rain a bit later. Seeing Eren’s reaction to the rain was a surprise for another day. It was time to make a move.

Jean nodded.

“Where were you thinking of going?”

“Nowhere in particular. Just town,” Eren shrugged as he jumped up and swung his backpack over his shoulders.

Jean stifled a yawn and followed Eren to the bus stop.

‘Just town’ definitely was somewhere in particular. It happened to be lots of places in particular and Jean was bored. It was weird because Jean was usually alright with shopping and Annie was constantly giving a dry commentary about how long he was taking to contemplate fabrics or how many times he needed to try on clothes before he was satisfied, but he kind of understood why she was so irritated by it.

Eren would spend five minutes squinting at something and then asking Jean what he thought, and no matter what Jean said he put the item in question back on the rack and moved on. It was not like Jean cared what Eren bought because he obviously looked good in anything. He at least wanted Eren to buy _something_ if the past hour and a half was not to be wasted.

“Should we get lunch or something?” Jean asked before Eren could return to picking up the same pair of trainers he had asked Jean about three times already.

“Yeah, we probably should,” Eren agreed as he pulled out his phone to take a picture of a different pair of trainers.

“Erm, what are you doing?”

“I just want a second opinion,” Eren said with a quick glance over his shoulder to Jean – almost carelessly automatic but the flash of a smile enough to make Jean try an unseen smile in return.

“So, like, what am I here for?”

“You keep saying, ‘Just get some Adidas ones,’ but every time I pick up a pair you tell me you don’t like them. I can’t tell if you’re being contrary to be funny or if you’re trying to force me into buying the same ones that you have or something, but Mikasa is a lot more consistent.” Eren tapped his phone to his chin as he sweetly smiled up at Jean. “Also I’ll need someone to carry half of the bags and I knew-“

Eren paused mid-sentence and glanced down at his phone. He sniffed loudly before roughly shoving his phone back into his pocket and grinning up at Jean. "So, yeah. I forgot what I was talking about."

Truthfully, Jean hadn't been paying too much attention beyond the accusation of trying to get them to match. He hadn’t been going for that at all but he supposed it would be kind of cool to coordinate sometimes. Not that it mattered at this point. He hesitated around the truth, the feel of it too clumsy in his mouth, before bending it to a more palatable reply. "I can't remember. You talk so quickly sometimes."

"Do I? Sorry. Anyway, these trainers look really cool."

Eren quickly crouched and started to prod at one shoe that didn't look cool at all. Maybe that was the snob in Jean talking. He had never been a Lonsdale man himself. But when Eren glanced up at him for comment Jean found himself nodding.

"Yeah. Those are nice."

"Should I buy them? Or do you think they might be a bit too flashy for me?"

"Flashy? They're white trainers."

“Yeah, but they’re so… Do you think they’d be too much for me?”

Jean wasn’t entirely sure what that was supposed to mean or what he was supposed to say. White trainers were the basics of the basics, something that everybody should have owned at some point in their lives. Jean’s eyes were drawn to Eren’s slip-ons that talked with every step he took, the soles flapping tiredly when he lifted his feet, and he wondered whether they had been worn to death after being chosen as meticulously as these trainers.

“What about the ones you sent a picture of to Mikasa? Or was that her just?”

“What? Oh, no. You said something about lunch, right? Maybe we should come back later and choose then.”

Jean had never wondered what a slow, painful death might actually feel like but he was apparently learning what those words meant anyway. Annie probably wouldn’t receive his silent apology but he felt better for have trying.

“Those ones. They’re… perfect. Everyone could use a bit of flashy in their lives.” Jean wondered whether the pain it caused him to say that was apparent but Eren had stooped and picked them up again, nodding.

“You’re right, I should treat myself.”

 

Lunch turned out to be McDonald’s. They were lucky enough to get a table at the window with the artsy chairs that looked the most comfortable but probably weren’t. These chairs swivelled and that made up for a lot of things really. Jean’s watched the distracted contentment at being able to swivel the chairs drain from Eren’s face when he noticed the high street outside the window turn grey as everything was saturated under the surprise deluge. Well, Jean wasn’t too surprised but then he probably hadn’t bothered mentioning it to Eren which was no doubt a mistake. He sighed a lot ass he nibbled his fries and announced that he was going to have to buy a jacket too.

Jean had been dreading the imminent ordeal of choosing a jacket but it seemed the rain had spurred Eren on and after lunch he had become a lot more decisive. Standing in line to pay for the jacket that took mere seconds to choose, Eren showed Jean a text from Mikasa branding the trainers he had taken a picture of abominations.

“It was a good job I listened to you after all,” Eren said.

Jean wasn’t sure when Eren thought he had been listening to him but it could have been worse. The message could have said that Eren _needed_ those trainers and Eren would have undoubtedly marched them off to JD once more to return the white ones and buy the ones that weren’t quite abominations but were definitely too flashy for anybody to wear. It was probably the best-case scenario. 

 

Eren did end up with a few bags and he didn’t even let Jean carry one of them. He felt mostly redundant and hoped that despite his initial boredom he had at some point redeemed himself by being okayish company. They were waiting at the bus stop, the rain showers from earlier having passed, and Jean was halfway through a yawn when Eren stopped fussing with his carrier bags on the bus shelter seat and cleared his throat.

"Can I just," Eren began as he stepped right into Jean's space.

"Just what?" Jean asked, lamenting the lost opportunity to finish that yawn.

"Kiss you. Just a small one. Can I kiss you?"

Yes. Of course. Jean sniffed loudly and tried not to beg for the moment to have come sooner. Sure, they had kissed in the past but what worth did that fact have if they weren't also kissing right at that second. It was fine though. They'd had a nice day and Jean just had to act as normal as possible so he didn't ruin things as usual.

"Yes. Please."

Jean quietly noted the desperation in his voice and hoped Eren wouldn't think too much of it. His luck was definitely in because Eren very nearly smiled and he tipped his chin up and stretched on his toes, his hands laying the barest of pressure on Jean's chest.

"Thanks," Eren said.

It was a weird thing to say but it was probably even more weird for Jean to puff a breathy chuckle through his nose right in Eren's face. At least the wince was an expected reaction to whatever inevitable stupidity Jean was to subject them both to.

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

"Right. So that kiss."

"I'm getting there."

"Okay," Jean said. He had hoped the question would mean that he would be getting that kiss in the immediate future but presently he was still unkissed. It was kind of strange, standing at the drenched bus stop and waiting to be kissed at Eren's leisure. Or perhaps this was just as unleisurely for Eren and he understood just how awkward this was. Jean didn't even know what he was supposed to do with his hands at this point and considering he had not done much with them until he remembered he had hands at all so he tentatively continued to do nothing.

But Eren finally did get there. He pressed closer and the downward tilt of Jean's head was not quite so inconvenient when the smooth warmth of Eren's mouth was pressed against his own. It was nice, as kisses went.

And then Eren pulled away and there was nothing of him that lingered because his mouth was gone and his hands were gone and he was bashfully glancing around as though it had only just occurred to him that the moment could have been witnessed. Eren was fussing with the shopping bags he had dumped on one of the seats and Jean didn't realised this was a situation that would leave him feeling embarrassed.

He wanted to say that he had liked it but that would probably have just been more embarrassing. The heat in his face was dire enough as it was - surely his hair would singe around his ears and at the back of his neck. He might have to allude to this in one of his lectures. Surely the engineers with a focus on sustainable energy sources would love to be informed about the endless, and certainly renewable energy created in the moments after a kiss.

A tiny old woman waddled over to the bus stop, Marks and Spencer’s carrier bags poking out of her trolley that trailed behind her. She smiled at Jean as she settled in the empty seat to the left of Eren.

"It's really getting warm now, isn't it?" She said cheerily.

"It really is," Eren agreed as he pressed the back of his hand to his cheek. Jean thought that would be that until Eren and the old woman launched into a discussion about her grandson's holiday. Jean waited, leaning against the bus shelter and waiting for some break in the conversation to jump in and remind Eren that he was still there and they had totally just kissed.

His time to interrupt never came - or the opportunity did not arrive before Eren's bus did. Eren threw a careless wave over his shoulder and offered to help the old woman with her little gingham trolley as they boarded the bus. Jean raised his hand as the bus pulled away, not that Eren was looking, and sagged against the bus shelter until a young mother and her irritatingly loud, tantrum-throwing toddler arrived and Jean stealthily distanced himself. Luckily the woman and her child didn't get on the same bus as Jean but his head still hurt and he felt uselessly irritable.

 

 

"Are you okay?" Annie asked after Jean flopped face-first into her bed.

Jean groaned, partially because he was embarrassed at having started his whinging in the living room before realising it was occupied with the housemates who were not Annie and did not care about his endless complaining. Even if they did have a point there wasn't really a need to be so mean about it. He was too surprised to retort that complaining was their forte too so he sulkily trudged up the stairs. As injured as he was by that, the original source of his whinging was the more pressing matter.

He stopped mushing his face into the duvet and looked up at Annie balefully.

"Eren kissed me."

"Oh no!" Annie gasped dramatically. She slid her laptop into the space beside her and removed an earbud.

"Shut up."

"You shut up. Is that so unusual?"

"What?"

Annie kicked Jean's shoulder. It was a soft kick but Jean whined all the same. "Don't you and Eren kiss all the time?"

"We've kissed a few times, I suppose," Jean allowed, "But this was different. It was nice. He asked me and I thought he was going to ask me again but instead he ignored me and talked to some old lady until his bus came."

"Oh. Dear." Annie's voice was irritatingly flat and Jean flapped his arms at her ankles, though his fingers came out worse off than her shins. "What's the problem? So maybe he's a nice kid who actually engages with the random old ladies that talk to him. She was probably just being friendly. Unless you're worried that they were... _flirting_."

"Shut up. I hate you." Jean groaned into Annie's duvet. He was aware that he was being ridiculous and dramatic but this was one time he was certain it was absolutely necessary. "Who the hell even told you about that?"

"What, Eren really has a granny fetish?"

"No, he- Never mind." Jean tipped his face up to look at Annie. She had refined taking the piss to the point that Jean was not even sure quite what she was picking on him for. He was willing to fall on the sword of her freshly-sharpened wit if it gave him someone to properly confide in. Not that he was all too picky in the past. He grumbled and said, "Well, Eren is bisexual, so I was concerned-"

"I am really going to punch you in the face."

Annie always sounded serious but that threat sounded super-serious so Jean shut up and hoped that would grant him enough protection.  

"You've known him for months and you have been in love with him for almost as long-"

"I am not in love with him!"

"- So don't even try to tell me that him being attracted to more than one gender is a problem for you now."

Jean didn't say anything, but Annie took that to mean she should deliver a fatal chop to his shoulder blades. That was probably more because he said he wasn't in love with Eren. He really wasn't. Jean liked Eren well enough, and he would get there eventually, but for now Annie would just have to be happy with the fact that Jean was lamenting his endless shortcomings whenever he compared himself to someone with as nice a face as Eren. He sat up, grumbling as he did so but Annie didn't look close to pretending to care.

"If he was only attracted to men would that solve everything?"

"Well, probably not?"

"I think you need to reconsider your views if innocent old women are worrying you,” Annie said, her voice belying the snarl on her face. “Besides, aside from the fact that you're a massive prick you have nothing to worry about. He found _you_ attractive for some reason and continued to pursue that. He hasn't been with anybody else so you hardly have any competition. It is just that you are a massive baby.”

“You sound so reasonable when you say that. And, like he said he’s never kissed anybody else-“

“So what’s the problem?” 

“It’s just that… What if he, like changes his mind about me and stuff.”

“What?”

“What if he doesn’t want to be my friend anymore?” Jean asked. He watched her take out her other ear bud.

She sighed. “Jean, it was only last month that you were accusing him of having something going on with Reiner. What is it going to take for you to just relax a little bit and stop being so suspicious that he is going to… I don’t even want to know what you think is going to happen really, Jean.”

“I know this is different to the Marco thing.” Annie tutted and Jean sat up and crossed his legs. “But, like, I want to be certain about things.”

“No idea what you’re saying to me right now.”

“Marco was like one of my best friends and I know there was nothing for him to change his mind about, because he never _liked_ me, but I wrecked everything – because of you by the way – and now I can’t remember the last time we spent time together outside of lectures. I kind of like being with Eren. I think he’d even be cool to be around if he didn’t really like me, but I don’t want him to not like me. If that makes sense.”

Annie rolled her eyes and pressed her hands to her face.

“All we do is talk about you,” She muttered before sending half a glare Jean’s way. “I never told you any of this, and most if it is second hand information anyway.”

“What?”

“He won’t change his mind any time soon. But if I were you I’d stop that annoying jealous thing. Since he met you he has been trying his hardest to make you like him but it is getting a bit much now. He is head over heels for you. He’s fancied you for ages apparently but he isn’t going to want to be with you if you keep second-guessing him and making groundless accusations. Just… stop being a twat, okay?”

“Erm.” Jean nodded quietly. He tried to clear his throat but the odd breathlessness wouldn’t leave his voice. No matter how much effort he put into it he would probably struggle to stop being a twat.

 

Armin waited until their lecture had finished before he started being awkward on Wednesday.

He watched Jean sweep his notes into his backpack and accepted the borrowed pen before nonchalantly asking, “So, how was it on Monday?”

“It was fine.”

“Did you make sure Eren had a good time?”

“He seemed okay.”

“Just okay?” Armin asked. There was something artificial about his surprise. He tilted head before holding a door open for Jean.  “You’ll have to do better next time. I can’t remember the last time any of us spent time with other people for our birthdays.”

“Us?” Jean asked, feeling stupid that his mind had skirted over the more obvious issue. “Birthdays?”

“That lecture wasn’t even that bad, unless you’re struggling with your assignment that much.”

“No,” Jean mumbled as he tried not to trip over his feet. “I mean. The birthday thing. What do you mean?”

“Mikasa and I had been making plans for Monday afternoon and we asked what he wanted to do but he told us he was going to be with you.”

“Right. Obviously,” Jean mumbled. Somehow Armin’s shorter stride was difficult to keep up with. Armin’s very vague hints were always difficult to keep up with. Jean must have woken up stupid that morning though because Armin was practically spelling things out for him here. “Just in case there might be a misunderstanding, could you maybe clarify something for me?”

“What?” Armin asked, irritation quickly tearing through his carefully constructed tone.

“Just… help me make the connection between Eren and birthdays.”

“How much clearer am I supposed to make it that Monday was Eren’s birthday?”

Right. Well Armin didn’t have to get much clearer than that.

 

 

“Hiya, Jean,” Eren said, breathlessly, brightly, when Jean opened the front door. Jean’s toes curled in his socks. He stepped backwards into the hallway and Eren pushed a carrier bag full of carefully wrapped packages. The wrapping paper look to be Christmas paper at a closer look but Eren was still smiling as he stepped over the threshold.

“Hello,” Jean said very casually and suavely.

He had the vaguest inkling about what was going on here, but he waited until Eren elaborated before he allowed the dread to sink into his stomach.

“Happy birthday!”

Right. Yeah. Obviously Eren would repay Jean’s ignorance with cheer and presents.

The last time Jean had felt this winded was on the first day of the month when Annie innocuously muttered, 'pinch, punch, first of the month,' and completed the accompanying actions gently before following with a bone-breaking 'slap, whack, don't pass it back!' When he had recovered from that initial shock he tried his hardest to retaliate with his own pinches and punches but either he had been unsuccessful or his attempts to use the superstition for himself backfired. This must have been his bad luck. Even though the revelation in question was mostly in regards to the previous month.  

"You really didn’t have to," Jean said, his voice too scratchy. He swallowed a few times but the chafing dryness of the inside of his mouth was somehow worse. He adjusted his grip on the bag of presents and hoped they were all dumb things he had just found lying around the house – not things he had actually spent money on, especially considering Jean was still pretending not to know Eren’s birthday had passed at all.

“I thought it would be nice to surprise you,” Eren shrugged.

“I’m surprised,” Jean confirmed.

“Great.”

Jean cleared his throat a few times before suggesting they go upstairs. Best to be covert about things before Annie came back home to put two and two together and totally slaughter the diminishing remains of Jean’s self-respect.

Jean trudged up the stairs and Eren dutifully followed. Oddly quiet as they made their way up the steps. After the first flight he reached around Jean into the bag and pulled out the small present on top.

“Oh. You should open this one right now.”

“Right now? While we’re standing on the stairs?”

“Yeah, sorry, I just – I… I don’t know, but can you open it now. Please?”

Jean hadn’t needed anything else to make his footsteps heavier but he opened the present as requested at Eren took the discarded wrapping from him and screwed it up before shoving it in his pocket. Jean mostly ignored that though. He was holding a square plastic case with a watch inside.  His heart plummeted because he was fucked.

“Do you like it?”

Jean wasn’t sure why he was required to give an immediate reaction but he nodded and smiled as best he could when all of his organs were planning an evacuation – brains and lungs first. Of course he liked the watch. The design was quite simple – effortlessly classy – and Jean wondered Eren had developed taste like that. The strap was silver and the face was brushed, black with roman numerals. Except the space for the number twelve was occupied by the Armani logo.

Jean sort of wanted to die and he supposed that wish was being granted because he couldn’t quite feel any of his extremities besides a distant tingle in his left arm.

“We can get it changed if you don’t like it–“

“No! I don’t… not like. It’s amazing. Erm. Thanks.”

“Happy birthday,” Eren said a little redundantly. There was not too much light on the stairs so Jean was probably imagining redness tinging Eren’s complexion.

“Thanks,” Jean mumbled. They continued up the stairs and Jean was certain he would have much preferred to fall backwards down the stairs and put himself out of his misery.

He safely made his way to his room asked Eren to open the door seeing as he doubted he could get much more use out of his arms.

"You still have that," Eren said flatly. He stopped in the doorway which was troublesome considering Jean's hands were clammy and his watch was in danger of slipping from his fingertips.

"Hmm?" Jean asked, hoping Eren would move soon. He didn’t and Jean’s fingers went a little bit limp – probably related to the lack of feeling in his hands – and he dropped the watch. He winced and hoped he wasn't the kind of idiot to break an expensive watch within an hour of receiving it. Eren bent down quickly to pick it up and his fingertips traced a harsh white crack in the plastic.  "Thanks."

"It's only the case that cracked. The bear. You still have it."

Eren stayed just inside the door but he shifted to let Jean squeeze through. He upended the carrier bag and let his presents tumble onto his bed just a foot away from the bear. He could have sworn the bear was on the floor in the corner of his room, proudly propped atop a pile of possibly passable clothes. He had suspected Annie for quite a few days of moving the bear around his room but unlike the other times the bear had moved it was spread-eagled at the edge of his bed. So maybe he had flung it there as he quickly evaluated his clothes by scent and stains.

Of course he still had the bear.

“You tricked me,” Jean said because it was the only thing he could think to say.

There was no reason why he wouldn’t have the bear – it was a present, even if it was a dumb bear – and it was weird that Eren even mentioned it.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Last week!” Jean totally wasn’t clutching at straws here. Being mad about the birthday thing was absolutely valid but Jean could feel the trapped tightness of his voice and the flare of strangled heat in his belly.

“I _tricked_ you? How? When?” Eren seemed to feel less awkward about the bear and had crossed the threshold to fix Jean with a glower. His hands clenched into fists and he exhaled slowly before he said, “Go on, tell me how.”

“Your birthday! You never told me.” So much for pretending not to have known about his birthday. “You tricked me into going on a date with you and you couldn’t even tell me it was your birthday.”

Now was probably not the time to complain about how this shirt had only been ironed ten minutes ago. Eren probably was not in the state of mind to care about Jean’s efforts to look crisp and sharp. Jean’s own birthday had taken a turn he hadn’t expected so he might have decided right at that moment that it didn’t matter about Eren’s deception. He spread his hands, wincing at the pull of the shoulder seams because of the tautness of Eren’s grip, and suggested, “We should count.”

Eren’s expression turned thunderous, his glare rolling into a snarl before Jean could even finish his completely reasonable suggestion.

“Yeah. Let’s count all the times you tricked me.”

That wasn’t what Jean meant at all.

“No, wait, when-“

“Let’s talk about the time you tricked me into coming on a double-date with you. Remember? When Marco and Mina seemed to think that we were together and I was ignoring the hints I had been getting about that all night until I realised that you were the one who told them we were. Admit it Jean, you only want me around when it’s convenient for you.”

“Okay that’s one time I sort of tricked you, like, get over it or something. It’s not even a big deal, not like you pretending it wasn’t your birthday just in case you couldn’t handle the possibility that I wouldn’t want to spend time with you or something.”

“Shut up,” Eren yelled, his voice streaked scarlet like the ruddy splotchiness at his neck. “I’m nowhere near finished. We could count any of the times you’ve flirted with me and pretended you were interested in me just so that I was ready for you to trick me into bed with you again.”

“I _am_ interest-“

“Or any of the times you’ve suggested we hang out so that you and your stupid friends would have something to gossip about, right? Like how I’m so clingy and desperate or something, right?”

Jean gaped. He was probably losing and he’d given away his chance at equal-footing when he attempted to calm the situation. All he could think to say was, “Armin is your friend.”

“Like, you’d pretend to be all nice and caring and stuff, like when I was sick and you brought me soup, and the movie just so I’d think you were nice and it was okay to keep trying.” Eren sort of seemed calm? Jean wasn’t sure what was happening but Eren’s grip on his shirt had loosened and his voice was steadier as he stared at his hands instead of Jean’s face. Jean’s gaze dropped to Eren’s hands too, the bleeding scab at the knuckle of his thumb can’t have been very hygienic at all for a nurse and Jean wondered why Eren didn’t just use a plaster to prevent the temptation of picking it again. “And I’d want to pay you back for all the nice things that you did for me, you know. Like, you’d throw me a bone and I’d jump through all the hoops just so I’d get another one. Just so you’d look at me and want to talk to me again. You suddenly painted yourself as this really ideal guy because you’d – erm, sorry – you’d almost be aggressive about wanting to pay for stuff and in conversations you’d talk about stuff that I had mentioned before so it seemed like you listened to me. So I’d want to try harder. And you got me to come over and help you pack when you went back home, remember, like how messed up is that, you making me pack your underwear?”

There was a pause before Jean realised that Eren had finished with a question. Obviously he was supposed to answer it.

“I didn’t make you do it. You did it of your own accord, like that was the only thing you helped me to pack. That’s weird, but I didn’t make a big deal about it because you’ve already sucked my dick. What’s the point of getting worked up about that stuff?”

Eren’s fist clenched again and Jean was glad that the top buttons of his shirt had been effortlessly and coolly unbuttoned because he probably would have suffered a lot more suffocation if he had fastened his shirt all the way.

“You’re so stupid!” The raised voice was back with the tense hold and Jean wouldn’t say he was surprised at all.

“Not as stupid as you apparently. You’re twisting everything in your head, you know. I never tricked you that was all stuff you yourself. You kept texting me, you kept flirting with me. Like, I’m sorry for the thing with Marco and Mina but what more do you want from me? It’s over and done with. You’re the one with all these weird insecurities, get over it, seriously.”

“You can’t even be serious right now. What about you and Reiner and your stupid – I don’t even know what that was about but if anybody is insecure it’s you.”

“Me? Insecure? You’re Mr I-have-never-kissed-anybody-apart-from-you, aren’t you? Isn’t that because your desperate bunny-boiler gimmick was holding you back the whole time?”

“You think I’m a bunny boiler?”

“Absolutely.” Eren had backed away with his question, tilted his head back a little bit but his grip was still on Jean’s shirt and Jean only had to tip slightly forward to loom over him enough to feel like he was winning. “You’re good looking, I can see that. For the longest time I couldn’t work out why you kept talking to me. It’s because you’re an idiot with the persistence of that one grape that’s left to decompose at the bottom of the fruit bowl.”

Being shoved roughly enough to end up sprawled over the bed next to the presents Eren had delivered left Jean gasping sort of awkwardly. He sat up – his hand rustling the carrier bag that had been discarded next to the pile of presents – and he patted the front of his shirt vainly. He couldn’t get away with not ironing it and he grimaced at the twisted creases that marred his chest. His head shot up at the odd spluttering noise that came from Eren. His arms were at his sides, almost limply aside from the attempts his hands were making to curl back into fists. His eyebrows were drawing together at a point and he hissed a breath as his eyes darted between Jean and the presents on the bed.

“Well you’re – you’re –“ Eren grunted in frustration. “I hate you.”

Jean kind of felt like he had won, if this was even how arguments were won. Eren’s breaths were all harshly sucked through his teeth and his shoulders were determinedly tense for the few seconds before they trembled violently.

“Hey, are you crying?”

“No!”

“You’re crying,” Jean said as though he needed to confirm what Eren’s spluttered whistles, fiercely red eyes, and damp cheeks might have meant. He stood and went to his chest of drawers and quietly slid open the drawer that Annie stashed supplies in. The sobs were louder with Jean’s back turned and he considered that he might have lost the argument if he felt so bad about winning. He snatched some tissues from the box nestled between a half-eaten bag of pick-and-mix and an empty tampon box. He tried to hand Eren the tissues but Eren’s hands wouldn’t accept them or maybe Eren liked having tears and snot dripping from his face.

Jean rolled his eyes. “You can’t fool me, you’re definitely crying,” He said. His own throat felt a little bit tight and he coughed a bit to clear it. He ignored the stinging at his eyes and the tickle at his throat as he bluntly wiped at Eren’s jaw, and then his cheeks, and his nose before dropping the tissues on the floor next to the chinos he had decided he couldn’t get another wear out of that morning. Hopefully Eren would take the hint that the tissues were gross and it was not going to be Jean’s responsibility to move them.

“You upset me,” Eren said redundantly.

“I’m sorry,” Jean said.

“No you’re not. I h-hardly s-s-said anything mean ab- Oh my god. I hardly said anything m-m-mean about you.”

“Yeah, but you tried, didn’t you.”

“You star-ted it. I hate you.”

The door knocked and then, “Um, Eren’s here.”

Which was a fact that Jean already knew so he turned to Annie in the doorway. And his mum. Annie and his mum standing in the doorway wearing curious expressions. And Jean was awkwardly standing next to Eren who was still sort of sobbing.

“You kind of ruined my surprise,” Annie frowned. “Let’s swap. I’ll see you in a minute, Mrs Kirstein. Eren, come with me.”

Jean’s mum sent a concerned glance Eren’s way as they passed.

“Happy birthday,” she said as she patted Jean on the shoulder. Then, “Are you okay? You look a bit-“

“I’m fine!”

Jean could admit that he didn’t sound fine but it was his birthday so he was fine. This was nothing like when Jean was younger, on the verge of tears because she was telling him off for refusing to eat his tea, or for losing his brand new watch, or scooping his fish out of the tank for cleaning, only to drop the flopping creature on the floor. He wasn’t even going to cry or anything anyway. It was his birthday and it wasn’t even close to being ruined by stupid Eren hurting his own feelings.

“Jeanbo,” She murmured as she dropped her bag onto Jean’s bed and drew him into her chest gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” His voice was a little muffled in his mum’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to make him cry.”

“Actions speak louder than words. He looked really upset. So that’s Eren. It’s a shame we couldn’t meet in better circumstances.”

“Shut up, you don’t know him. What are you even talking about?” Jean muttered. His mum’s cardigan felt a little bit damp against his face and the air must have been really humid or something because he was definitely not crying, no matter what his mum’s shoulder patting suggested.

“Annie texts me sometimes seeing as my own son won’t tell me things.”

Jean sniffed. He had no idea what he was supposed to have told his mum. He doubted she would appreciate being filled in with every minor detail of him allegedly tricking Eren into all sorts. Part of him wanted to ask what Annie had told her but he thought he might be better off not knowing.

“He’s just being stupid,” Jean grumbled. He pulled away and scrubbed at his eyes. “What do you care about Eren?”

“My son made him cry so I at least want him to apologise for doing that.”

“I will. I’ve already said sorry. We’re not seven, he’s just being stupid.”

Jean’s mum raised her eyebrows. “You should probably just pick one answer and stick with it if you want to sound convincing.”

 

Jean had no idea what Annie’s texts to Jean’s mum had said but she was already more than willing to love Eren. She hugged him and told him he had a wonderful smile in the breath before she quizzed him on his favourite foods. Jean had no idea what that meant but he doubted it would bode well for him.

Things had been a bit odd since Jean had been in the living room, poking at the painstakingly wrapped present that his mum handed to him. She had insisted they wait for Annie and Eren to rejoin them. When they finally came down Eren looked tired, his eyes red-rimmed and a little bit unfocussed. Annie was much harder to read though Jean supposed he didn’t need to use guess-work seeing as she pinched his arm and hissed in his ear that she and Mikasa would be having words with him.

Jean had difficulty judging what any of Eren’s quiet watchfulness meant. He had only smiled after Jean’s mum _lied_ and told him he had a nice smile as though she had any idea what it might look like. It was an okay smile but honestly he was totally cheating anyway because he was already pretty, even when he was glumly listening to a woman rib her son relentlessly for the benefit of giving Annie blackmail material.

Eren had quite plainly said that he hated Jean. That only meant a few limited possibilities. Jean was putting his money on Eren just being very dramatic and also a sore loser. Entertaining the smallest possibility that Eren might even dislike him a little bit did make Jean need to steady himself for a moment and think very manly thoughts. He didn’t want to cry. He didn’t want to act like a baby because Eren said he _hated_ him. His feelings were hurt too. So what if Jean called Eren a bunny boiler – at least Jean had sort of grown to like him in spite of it – being hated was far worse.

Jean sniffed loudly. He didn’t care about anything anyway. It was his birthday.

“I wonder what this could be,” Jean muttered flatly. His mum’s present was very obviously floppy and Jean wondered if his mum thought she was being cryptic. It had to be clothing of some sort. She had an okay sense of style but Jean hoped she had kept the receipt just in case.

She was smiling very suspiciously.

“I’m not going to be embarrassed, right? This isn’t going to be some weird thing, is it?”

“What do you take me for?”

“Erm. I’m not saying I’m expecting you to have somehow squeezed a stripper into this but you have previous.”

“What?”

“Please tell me you will explain the stripper thing to me at some point,” Annie groaned. He knew the feeling well, the knowing anticipation of getting dirt on someone. It was an odd story, probably, but Annie would only be disappointed by learning it. Sure, Jean’s grandparents mysteriously cut off all contact with certain family members and Auntie Val couldn’t speak to anybody present at the stripper incident without turning a hue of red even her foundation could not hide, but the end result was mostly to not allow Jean’s mum to surprise anybody.

Although he was very surprised. She had folded the shirt she had wrapped and he would definitely be enlisting the help of an iron, or he would make his mum iron it for him. It looked like a normal shirt. He covertly inspected the seams but it didn’t seem to be a tear-away shirt or anything. It was simply a nice dress shirt.

“Oh. Thanks, mum.”

 

Annie had apparently organised a small get-together for the evening. It was odd seeing as Jean didn’t consider himself particularly close with too many of the people who arrived in the hour after his mum left. He liked Connie and Sasha well enough but Jean was certain the main reason they came was for the cake. Jean wished they hadn’t bothered. It was a very tasty cake and he kind of wanted to eat it all himself.

And maybe he’d spare a slice for Eren.

Eren who hadn’t said much to him all day. Sure, they’d sort of had an argument, but it was definitely ruining Jean’s birthday. Jean had sullenly unwrapped the presents Eren had given him, brought them all downstairs so he wasn’t alone while Annie and Eren blew up balloons and set out the buffet table.

One of Jean’s housemates came to the living room to drop a birthday card on the sofa next to him as he looked down at the notebook and the belt he had just unwrapped.

“Happy birthday,” Jean assumed she muttered though she could just have easily have said something mean. Jean wasn’t sure because she was a mumbler. Not that it mattered. What mostly mattered was the fact that there was a tenner in the card and Jean realised he didn’t know when her birthday was either.

“This is really good cake, isn’t it?” Sasha said as she plonked herself next to Jean. He thought it very generous slice on her plate was for her to eat right in front of his face because she was apparently very cruel. Jean was wrong. She pushed the cake in Jean’s direction and he gingerly accepted it.

“Thanks.”

“Annie was telling me about the recipe she used. I have to say, I think I have found my new wife.” Sasha sighed, content as she watched Jean’s first tentative bite of cake. He had already eaten some and he really wasn’t in the mood for much more. But Jean’s job of awkwardly opening presents for an audience was done and all that was left was to eat cake.

“What happened to your old wife?” Jean asked. Sasha was perhaps too avid an audience for cake eating.

“Hmm? I didn’t have one?”

“No, you said you’ve found your new wife so I just thought there was someone else you used to call your wife too or something. It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh.” Sasha blinked owlishly. “Maybe I should have said I ate her.”

“Okay.”

“So, not to change the subject or anything, but what’s the story with Annie anyway?”

Jean frowned at the cake. What was he supposed to say to as vague a question as that? Luckily he had a massive piece of cake to shove into his mouth. It was delicious. Easily the best chocolate cake Jean had ever eaten. Obviously he already knew that, but it was worth reliving those thoughts for the sake of avoiding Sasha’s question. He also had to avoid looking at her and where else would his eyes happen to fall but on Eren who had been bouncing a balloon on Mikasa’s shoulder.

Eren almost smiled. He didn’t though. He quickly looked away and pretended to listen to Mikasa sing along to Annie’s playlist. It was obvious he was pretending because Eren was a bad actor and Jean had never seen something as wooden as Eren’s smile as he blandly tipped his head in Mikasa’s direction.

“Why don’t you ask Annie yourself,” Jean grumbled.

“I did. Well I asked her about the cake but it wasn’t quite the same thing, was it?”

“Obviously not.”

Jean finished the cake and Sasha snatched the plate from him. “I’ll get you some more.”

“No thank you,” Jean said, grasping at the edge of the plate as though it really mattered whether or not she took it from him. He really didn’t want more cake but Sasha was being odd – not that Jean had a wealth of experience to verify that.

“I insist. Really!”

“Fine.”

Sasha flopped back and smushed the plate against her chest. The worst of the damage was a brown smear on her left boob. Jean was absolutely not tempted to laugh at all.  

“Amazing.”

Sasha wailed and maybe drew a few looks their way but otherwise this was just typical Sasha. Jean guessed it was the sort of thing she was prone to when he heard Connie chastise her tiredly, “This is why I asked if you were sure about wearing white today.”

“It’s not my fault!”

Sasha complained loudly as she left to take the plate to the kitchen, Connie making slow chase as he loudly reminded her about his previous warnings. Jean hoped that Sasha wouldn’t return with more cake. He decided he wasn’t sticking around whether she brought some or not.

Eren was frowning a little as he attempted to replace Mikasa’s head with a balloon. Her phone was clutched in her hand tightly as she batted him away and Eren was in a headlock by the time Jean arrived at the scene. He didn’t know why he continued the approach. It was awkward standing before the two of them without a clue what he wanted to do or say. But it was Jean’s birthday and it would have been rude for them to tell him to go away.

“Hi.”

Eren kept his mouth shut and looked at Mikasa to speak first. She rolled her eyes and said, “Hello.”

Eren still didn’t say anything and Jean would really have liked things to go back to normal sooner rather than later. He was wasting time just waiting for the moment to get less awkward. So he was going to be proactive. Sort of.

“Can we talk in private?” Jean asked quietly.

Eren glanced at Mikasa briefly before shrugging. Her face was set in an expression that had Jean withering on the spot. He had to hold fast. If he didn’t wait he couldn’t get another chance.

“I suppose so.”

Relieved, Jean tried a smile at Eren that was stalwartly unreturned. That was fine. He had agreed to talk so it was progress of sorts.

‘Private’ left only a few possibilities for where they could talk. Jean’s best bet was his bedroom. Once he had closed the door behind the two of them he took a deep breath and mentally rehearsed the words he hoped would make things better.

“I have a proposition.”

“Hmm.”

“Okay. Let’s just start afresh. Blank page. Forget basically everything, okay?”

“How would any of that benefit me?” Eren asked. His arms were folded loosely across his chest and he was perching right on the very edge of Jean’s bed. He didn’t bear any of the signs of crying now, but a few wordless hours had passed and it just wasn’t normal. Jean sat next to Eren on the bed and his heart absolutely did not squeeze disappointedly when Eren inched away.

“Humour me. We both forget everything except the fact that I didn’t realise it was your birthday. So I try to make it up to you, like a do-over. Because you’ve given me too much and all I have done is be selfish and stupid.”

Eren snorted.  

“I’m not claiming to have a personality transplant or anything. You should get your chance to be selfish too.”

“Oh? Wouldn’t you prefer me to have a personality transplant? Or do you like rotting fruit now?”

“What?”

Eren glared pointedly and Jean wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to glean from that. “Okay. Erm. I don’t want to fight again.”

“I wouldn’t call that a fight so much as a personal attack,” Eren muttered sourly.

“Eren, please.” This really was not the time for a fight. The day hadn’t been all that long but Jean lacked the energy for them to disagree about anything and everything. He should have known that Eren wouldn’t have easily agreed but he wasn’t sure whether Eren was simply determined to be contrary. Jean sighed a little shakily and tried to still the bouncing of his knee. “I like spending time with you. I want to keep being able to… to do that. I think the best way to make thing up to you, so that we can go back to normal, is if you start doing more things that you want to do.”

“What does that even mean?” Eren threw his hands into the air but he didn’t get any more animated than that. “Aren’t you even going to apologise?”

“Would you accept an apology from me right now?”

A pause. Eren slid his hands under his thighs as though he needed some restraint. Then, “Probably not.”

“Well then.”

For a moment Jean wondered whether he should have apologised anyway. They’d done this whole bit before where Jean tried to apologise and Eren had brushed it off like it was nothing. The word ‘sorry’ might not have done much and the argument from earlier was a bit too fresh for Jean to start picking his way through it just yet. The point was to prove to Eren that he wanted them to be okay. He could totally, and absolutely casually, bring up that he was so over Eren’s bisexuality thing because it wasn’t a big deal – Jean had no problems with it now and it had nothing to do with Annie’s threats to end him – so Eren should easily be able to get over whatever his problem was. Jean could totally be the bigger man.

“I also–“

“Why do you think I’m not – sorry,” Eren stopped and tilted his head.

“Oh. No. You go ahead. Yours is probably more important anyway,” Jean said through a jaw that was entirely untensed.

“Erm, okay. Why don’t you think that I’m already doing what I want to be doing?”

“What?”

Jean was probably imagining Eren turning pink. He wasn’t anywhere near cute enough to actually start blushing at a time like this.

Eren coughed dryly. “You want us to go back to normal, right? So what if this is okay for me?”

“What, you being mad at me?” Jean added, ‘For no reason,’ in his head despite the fact he knew that there was a reason. His brain was ready to betray him at any moment.

“I- no,” Eren paused and frowned at the air in front of his face as though he could somehow pick out the right words from his vision. “I suppose I do do a lot for you, but what if I like doing it? Like, you do a lot for me too. Erm, maybe I’m already being selfish or something.”

And Jean did not have the foggiest idea what Eren was on about. He stewed over the words for a moment but they gained no coherent meaning. “What are you even talking about? Are you stupid or something?”   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to start off with an apology. Like It's been over a month since the last update and I hope you guys weren't expecting a really well constructed chapter because of that - It's the six week holidays and my hours at work have been crazy (except for this week because they hate me and they only gave me 18 hours this week???). I didn't really have the chance to sit down and write this up properly, but I think it turned out okay.... ish.


	13. Salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's bruises and kisses and grinding and confessions and hand holding.

“What happened to you?” Marco asked, probably more shocked than genuinely concerned. Jean’s face didn’t look too bad and honestly the initial swelling from his black-eye had gone down a lot. Jean was getting used to the purple puffiness that swallowed up his right eye. The knock against the side of his nose was completely invisible too. So Jean wasn’t offended that Marco wasn’t dialling an ambulance.

“You should see the other guy,” Jean said.

Marco sent a questioning look Armin’s way but wasn’t satisfied with what he saw there. “Should I see the other guy?”

“I wonder,” Armin said through something that sounded like a smirk.

Jean withdrew his notebook from his bag and flipped to a blank page and began colouring in the margin.

“I’m being serious though. What happened?”

“It was Eren,” Jean shrugged, the movement slow so as not to disturb the scribble as it edged over the line dividing the margin from the rest of the page. “He sort of punched me.”

“There’s no ‘sort of’ about it,” Armin grinned.

“I’ll say,” Marco agreed. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Right. And you and Eren… are you broken up now?”

“What?” Jean stilled his pen on his page because he didn’t want to risk going over the lines as he glanced up at Marco. He didn’t want to waste another sheet of paper with his scribbles. Jean didn’t think he had misheard Marco but he await the repetition just to be sure.

“Have you and Eren broken up? Is that why you’re…” Marco pointed at his own eye as though it was a swollen slit he could just about keep open despite the sting of air. It was alright for some.

“No. We’re not-” Jean had to stop himself from revealing that he and Eren weren’t actually in a relationship. He had almost forgotten the lie. He cleared his throat and in a much more relaxed voice said, “We’re not.”

“Why did he punch you then?”

“Yes, Jean, please enlighten us all,” Armin added dryly.

“I, erm. I called him stupid, I guess.”

“Ooh,” Marco winced. “Schoolboy error,” He said as though this was something he could have navigated better than Jean did. Jean only scowled down at the tiny leg of ink that had stepped over the margin on his page. He was trying to be careful but he had ruined it now. He sighed very quietly. The whole reason jean got punched in the first place was because he hadn’t been expected one. The only ‘schoolboy error’ Jean would admit to making was the one on the page before him.

 

 

**Can I come over?**

_Yeah. See you in a bit?_

Eren didn’t reply and maybe Jean was a bit concerned. Eren never left a conversation half-done. Well, he let conversations slip into nothing when Jean was entirely unresponsive but that was mostly Jean’s fault. Something must have been on Eren’s mind enough to make him neglect sending even the most inane of replies.

“What do you think is wrong?”

“Hmm?” Annie glanced up from her laptop and screwed up her face, wrinkling the blackhead strip across the bridge of her nose. She said, “There are lots of things wrong with you Jean, I don’t think we have enough time to cover everything.”

“What? Shut up. I’m talking about Eren.”

“There’s lots wrong with him too,” Annie said very seriously. “For example, he likes you.”

“I really hate you, you know.”

“I was making a valid point,” Annie pouted innocently. “He’s definitely taking a step down by hanging around with someone who treats him like dirt.”

“I _do not_ treat him like dirt.”

“Maybe not now,” Annie said quietly, the speculative tone making it clear she meant her words and that the blame lay firmly with Jean. He could only scowl until Annie kicked him gently. “You took a bit too long remembering he was an actual human being, that’s all.”

“I’ve known he is a person the whole time,” Jean grumbled with an ineffectual kick aimed at Annie’s shin. They were probably both lucky he missed because he had intended to use more force than Annie had and he would probably have been dead before he saw Eren one last time. “He’s just less annoying now.”

“Was he ever that annoying in the first place? I can’t really remember a time that he was more annoying than you.”

Well. Obviously. Eren wasn’t annoying Annie at the time, that’s why she didn’t see it. He was annoying Jean on purpose by texting him and smiling at him and maybe being an okay person to hang out with. It was Jean who had borne the brunt of that and now it was Jean deciding that Eren had mellowed a bit and was no longer as annoying as he had been initially.

“I remember when he was annoying,” Jean said flimsily. “He still is a bit but I suppose it’s not the worst thing in the world.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he-“ Jean stopped and Annie giving him a curious look. She looked tired and her hair was a mess and Jean supposed she had been struggling with her exams. Jean knew that he had it easy. He only had to write a few papers and sit a few exams and he was home free. Annie had to plan lessons and talk to very irritating and snotty children all day. And then she had to listen to Jean complain about whatever was bothering him at the time. He very empathetically said, “Sometimes being annoying is okay.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m sure. I also think you should try to agree with me on that.”

Annie raised her eyebrows and tapped at the blackhead strip that had dried enough to make a sound when tapped by her nail.

“You’re not trying to tell me that I’m annoying, are you? Because if you are I have a few things to tell you-“

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Just, you know. Thanks for listening to me all the time. If you ever want to talk about your stuff… I’m all ears or something.”

“How sweet,” Annie said dryly. She tugged at the corner of her blackhead nose strip and winced. “I left this on too long.”

She tossed her laptop aside and wriggled off her bed, picking at the corners of the strip.

“I’ll wait here for you,” Jean called redundantly. Of course he would be because he didn’t have much else going on in his life.

He was nosy though. He waited the sufficient amount of time to indicate he was truly alone before shuffling across Annie’s bed to peer at her laptop. Jean couldn’t make head nor tail of what she had written. It looked to mostly be a code of some sort but Jean guessed it must have been one of her lesson plans. She might have mentioned in passing that she had been struggling to cram everything she wanted into the thirty minute lessons she had but Jean supposed she would have an easier time if it if she wrote less stuff down.

The door creaked and Jean shoved the laptop away and winced at the crash of it falling off the side of the bed.

“There was a gust of wind,” Jean started to explain before he realised Annie wasn’t standing in the doorway. “Oh. Hello. Hi. You’re here.”

“Lucky. I got it on the first guess,” Eren mumbled as he very cautiously stepped into Annie’s bedroom. Jean hastily reached over the side of the bed to pick up Annie’s laptop. There was no obvious damage at a cursory glance and Jean decided that was fine. If Eren was so worried about something as unconcerning as entering Annie’s bedroom he probably wouldn’t respond well to pressurised questioning about the state of her laptop. Besides that, Jean was only seconds into their first encounter of the day and he was already confused.

“Erm, what?” Jean was probably going to say something else but when he actually got an eyeful of Eren there was a more pressing matter. He only gaped while Eren sheepishly scratched at his ear.

“I was let in by the he girl with the…” Eren gestured at his own shoulders floppily and Jean wondered whether the action was supposed to be indicative of shoulders or hair but that was _really_ not even close to being important. “And I wasn’t sure whether I should come here or to your room. And I, erm, I guessed that you’d be in here. It’s stupid really.”

Jean nodded and cleared his throat.

“Your face,” he said.

“Oh,” Eren said as though surprised that the litany of bruises across his face had been brought up as a conversation topic. “I fell. No big deal. So, yeah, I came to see you.”

“We match,” Jean said because it was the most sensible thing he could think to say.

They didn’t really match. Eren looked much worse than Jean ever had and Jean wondered whether there was more to the story than, “I fell.”

Eren shrugged and attempted a very pained smile before he gave up and brought his hand up to the corner of his lips where it looked like a split had reopened with a fresh shine of red. Jean cleared his throat. He didn’t want to push at anything sensitive but he doubted Annie’s bedroom was really the place to have the conversation. Plus the move gave him time to think of something very considerate to say.

By the time Eren was perched on the edge of Jean’s bed, tongue prodding insistently at the cut at the corner of his mouth, Jean hadn’t thought of anything good to say. He decided to go with what he had managed to come up with. There was barely an inch of space between their thighs, though the backs of Jean’s knees were touching the edge of his mattress. This way was better, sitting slightly behind Eren so he didn’t have to embarrass himself face-to-face.

“What really happened?” He asked the back of Eren’s shoulder.

“Nothing. I told you. I fell.”

“If… If you remember anything else you should feel free to tell me.”

“I won’t, but okay.”

“Right.” Jean cleared his throat. He wanted to ask why Eren had asked to come over. He wanted to ask why Eren had arrived twenty minutes earlier than he should have. If Eren had been at home when he sent the text he would have been lucky to be on a bus at this point. It seemed rude to ask so Jean didn’t. He said, “How long ago did you fall over?”

Eren shrugged and Jean wondered whether it was because he had sounded very sceptical.

“Only, I was wondering whether anyone had looked at your injuries. Like, is it worse anywhere else?”

Four heartbeats before Eren shook his head. Jean wasn’t certain it was normal to be able to count the increments of his life like that but he supposed Eren’s thing was the more pressing issue.

“That’s good. Do you want to do something?” Jean asked. The question was more of a, ‘why did you come over,’ but a lot more polite and a lot less intrusive. Hopefully.

“I dunno.”

“Do you want to watch a film or something?”

Eren shrugged. Jean held back his sigh as best he could.

“We were going to watch Annabelle’s Wish the last time you were over but we didn’t get to. Remember, because you wanted to watch Camp Rock again instead?”

Jean was hoping for a “Shut up,” or at least the slow birth of a smile but Eren did neither. He didn’t do much of anything and Jean was itching to ask what had really happened. His fingers tingled with the want to clutch at Eren’s shoulders and shake him with his frustration and desperation and make him talk. But he had already decided he would wait.

“Let me get my laptop,” Jean said flatly. At least Eren took the silent instruction to move for what it was. Eren decided that they would lie on their stomachs while watching the film and Jean had no doubt that was the worst idea ever. But he plonked his laptop at the foot of his bed and tried not to make it obvious that he hadn’t already been looking for a link for Annabelle’s Wish since that morning.

Eren did eventually speak after the film started. He leaned up with a small hiss that Jean wasn’t supposed to be aware of and said, “This is a Christmas film, isn’t it?”

“No, shut up,” Jean mumbled.

Eren huffed through his nose. An almost smirk was at his lips but then his tongue was pressing against the corner where his lip was cut and Jean was wondering all over again.

He tried not to be obvious about watching Eren but Jean had already committed Annabelle’s Wish to heart before he was even ten years old. He would absolutely give up his voice to make Eren talk. His own voice was a little bit grating and it would do him some good to be lost for words more often. The thing was Eren could talk, he just wouldn’t. Jean sighed and sat up, stretching ineffectually because he was tired of lying down. 

Onscreen Billy had woken up and realised the miraculous gift of his voice. By the time Billy had gone to the barn and realised that Annabelle the cow couldn’t even make a peep, Eren’s breaths had become suspiciously harsh.

Eren sniffed loudly and one sharp, “Oh, fuck,” was all it took before Eren paused the film and scrambled up to his knees. He rubbed at his eyes roughly. “Why would you make me watch something like that?”

“We didn’t even make it through the first half hour.”

“That’s a horrible movie,” Eren sniffed injuredly.

“It has a happy ending.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“It’s a kids’ movie.” Jean protested.

“Is it?” Eren asked tersely.

“Yes!” At that reply Eren crossed his legs and then his arms and then he fixed Jean with a pout. Jean smirked into his hand and tried very hard not to laugh. “You’re not even that cute, you know.”

“Neither are you.”

“I’m not the one acting like a little kid because I couldn’t handle a film.”

“The _cow_   wanted to become a _reindeer_ ,” Eren said as though that meant everything in the world. At Jean’s tiny breath of a smile he added, “It started with a barn being set on fire. Listen, Jean, I know you love country music but-“

“I do not love country music!”

“Sure you don’t,” Eren said with a considerable eye roll. “What do you like then?”

Jean wasn’t sure whether he was being goaded into admitting a very specific something. He squinted at Eren but the raised eyebrows and the bitten back smile didn’t even tremble to give anything away. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Eren seemed to have cheered up a little bit but Jean doubted it was enough to have any lasting impact when Jean recalled the very dourly depressed Eren who had walked into Annie’s bedroom.

Jean wanted to make Eren smile. All the time. He wanted Eren to be happy. He wanted Eren to tell him what was wrong because, as useless as Jean was, he wanted to try to fix things. Even though it was usually Jean messing things up he had the feeling Eren’s current problem was one that couldn’t be cured by coy kisses and cautious flirting.

Or maybe Eren didn’t have a problem – at least not anymore – and it was Jean who was desperate to fix something that resolved never to be solved. He frowned. He wanted to be sure that Eren was going to be okay, even if he wasn’t at the moment. He wanted to _make sure_ that Eren was okay.

He couldn’t quite do that. This maybe wasn’t so different to waking up in the middle of the night, aged eight with a bladder that could not handle liquids after seven o’clock, and tiptoeing past the oddly ragged saws coming from his mum’s bedroom only to realise that she was crying. Jean had woken up every single night, like clockwork, squinting through the darkness that was only made worse by the blank spots of light effervescing as he silently stumbled to sit outside his mum’s bedroom and waited for her to stop crying. Then Jean would start crying himself. It was only after a week of this that Jean started to crawl into his mum’s bedroom once he was sure her eyes were dry, and whisper to her that he was scared, that he couldn’t see, that the weight of his head was too much and he was sure it would explode. Each night she hugged him close and mentioned nothing of the red letters coming in the post each day but she didn’t even smile politely until their GP handed her a prescription for Jean’s pills and he stopped waking up in the night.

He never had been able to do anything for his mum, except perhaps burden her with the knowledge that her son knew she was struggling to cope. He wanted to do something for Eren. Even if he couldn’t actively do something he could be supportive. He could hold Eren’s hand when he couldn’t speak and he could hold Eren close when he couldn’t keep himself together and he could let Eren know that he would always be there even if Eren thought that everything was going wrong in his life.

It was easy to think of what he wanted to do. It was a lot easier to admit that much to himself than to admit what he _liked_. Maybe Eren really had been asking about music even though it should have been made abundantly clear that Jean ‘liked’ whatever was playing on the radio stations each month. Regardless, Jean decided it was time he stopped scribbling the lines for Eren to read between.

Jean cleared his throat.

“I think I probably like you.”

Eren snorted, a grim smile tugging at the unblemished corner of his lips and he very determinedly looked away. There was shyness in his shoulders though. He grumbled, “You _probably_ like me?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“You’re such a prick.”

“Yeah.” Jean agreed as he tried not to smile. “Probably.”

Jean didn’t really have to worry about smiling half a second after he stopped talking because Eren was struggling to tamp down his own very gentle smile. The brilliance of the pink rising across his cheeks and peaking at his forehead was certainly something to behold. Jean felt like he was staring bit there was always so much to watch with Eren. Somehow it had been him – Jean himself, not being an idiot for once in his life – that had made Eren react in this way that was the fair side of perfect.

Just from watching Eren bite at his lower lip, failing to rein in his obvious joy, Jean could feel his heart not even trying to keep up rhythm. It was skidding along its metronome, leaving Jean to feel desperate. If he died now from some cuteness-inflicted-cardiac-failure Jean reasoned it wasn’t the worst way to go. Not even if the breathlessness was the right amount of pressure to squeeze hot splashes of tears into his eyes enough to blur his vision. He could barely make out the loveliness of Eren’s face – not even marred by the scratches on his cheeks and the stagnant pools of purple around his eyes and his nose and his jaw, but perhaps managing to glow brighter in rose and amaranth in spite of the injuries. Luckily he had managed to commit the image to memory in the three seconds until Jean –

“Are you crying?”

“What the fuck? No! Shut up!”

“Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” Jean lied as he allowed himself to be drawn into Eren’s rapid-response embrace. “I’m not crying.”

“Alright,” Eren said. It was very rude of him to do so because it make it completely obvious to Jean that he was barely holding back a laugh after all the effort Jean went to so he didn’t laugh in Eren’s face about how much he liked him.

He was an idiot. But he was glad Eren didn’t press him any further on the crying thing. The fact was he was crying and that was all Eren needed to know. Eern did not at all need to know the exact reasons behind it. Eren’s didn’t need to know that Jean had tried his hardest to be cool and suave only for some vermilion veneered reason to whack him in the chest. He was breathless and his black eye stung and his teeth felt numb despite the fact he couldn’t usually feel them at all and he loved Eren.

It was probably the worst reason to start crying.

He continued to do so anyway.

Jean was absolutely in love with Eren and that whole ‘I probably like you,’ thing was ridiculous and a shoddy attempt at being mysterious and cool. It wasn’t like he thought he would be rejected, or that these feelings were unrequited – though one strand of sanity reminded him he had been absolutely positive about the Marco thing a lifetime ago – but more the weight of the realisation.

Eventually Jean managed to regulate his breathing to the point that he could almost will away the wetness of his eyes and talking became something doable. He leaned up from the sweet heat of Eren’s chest and dabbed at his eyes with the backs of his hands and sniffed loudly. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise. It happens to the best of us,” Eren said, his words of comfort very hollow but the circles of his hands on Jean’s back were less so. Jean wondered whether Eren knew that he was the best and his emotional outbursts were well documented in Jean’s memory. Eren’s hand stilled and he added, “But just so you know I like you too. There’s no probably about mine. I definitely like you. A lot. You knew that already though.”

“It’s always nice to be sure.”  

And it was sort of okay because at least they were both sure. Jean was sure that Eren liked him and he was sure that he loved Eren, even if it had taken his own muted confession to reveal that much to himself.

 

 

"So, are we together now or something?"

"Erm, yes?" Jean replied, wondering how this was something that had to be clarified. He thought it was the most obvious thing in the world but there must have been something for Eren to misinterpret or... perhaps Jean had imagined a lot of things? He was tired because it was the middle of the night and he was growing less certain of things with every passing second.

Avoiding answering his phone at night might have been some sound advice for the future.

“Okay. I was just checking,” Eren said hurriedly.

“Good night, Eren.”

“Okay, bye-bye… Erm…”

“What is it?” Jean asked, his grip on his phone already slackening. He didn’t need Eren being all cryptic and slow at this time of night, whatever this time happened to be.

“Sorry. Nothing. Goodnight. Bye.”

“G’night,” Jean yawned. He tossed his phone away and heard the hopeless thud of it hit his bedroom floor. Though that was tomorrow’s problem.

 

It was totally normal for Eren to arrive at Jean’s doorstep unannounced on a Saturday. It was slightly less normal for him to arrive with a plastic smile and Mikasa standing next to him. Jean was suddenly certain that he had done something very wrong and Eren’s false cheer only made that thought more concrete.

“Good morning, Jean, it is very nice to see you.”

“Hi Eren. Mikasa.”

“Hi, Jean,” MIkasa said. After a second she added, “Can we come in?”

Of course. Jean stumbled over his response which was some string of syllables that must have meant something before they left Jean’s mouth. He stepped aside and after that his meaning was clear enough. Mikasa shot Jean a very unimpressed look as she passed but at least her entering first gave Eren and Jean the opportunity to convey their confusion to one another.

“Is Annie about?”

“Yeah. Just in the living room,” Jean replied over his shoulder. Jean shut the front door and waiting until Mikasa was at the other end of the hallway before hissing, “What’s going on?”

“Uh, hi, Boyfriend. I just came over to see you.”

“Keep your voice down, we’re trying to have a private conversation here,” Jean whispered as he flapped his hand around. Eren raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms tightly. “That’s great, thank you. But why is Mikasa here?”

“Just a friendly visit,” Eren shrugged. “I did text you earlier.”

The warning would have been nice but Jean couldn’t really blame Eren for the lack of one. He shook his head. “Oh, I lost my phone earlier.”

“Do you want me to call it for you?”

“Nah. It’s on silent but the battery probably died anyway. Just, okay.”

Eren stepped closer, his hands curled against Jean’s chest. Jean liked that. He also liked how natural it felt to bring his own hand to rest of Eren’s hip and to stand and smile and think this was the coolest thing ever. Because they were sort of boyfriends. Or they were definitely boyfriends and Jean was such an idiot for this man.

“You’re lucky I managed to stop Armin from tagging along.”

“Oh, god, can you imagine? I think he actually hates me. He pretends we’re friends but one day I’m going to get shanked or something and I won’t have seen it coming.”

“Stop,” Eren scoffed as he slapped Jean’s hand away from his hip. He did lean more heavily into Jean’s chest though. That was nice. “You might be right about him hating you though. Can’t remember the last time he said anything nice about you.”

“Oh, great.”

“But I couldn’t palm Mikasa off on anybody else. I think she wanted to come to see Annie, so it might be okay,” Eren said, the hopefulness obvious in his tone. “It’s just that I think we should be able to _privately_ spend some time together.”

That absolutely sounded like a fantastic idea. Jean nodded but he was certain that there was some way he could be more emphatic about this, just to make sure Eren knew how great of an idea this was. He wrapped his arms around Eren, tightly trapping him for just long enough for Jean to consciously be glad that he had arms.

“We should go to my room,” Jean said.

“I’d love to but I can’t move.”

That wasn’t strictly true. If Eren actually tried he could probably get out of Jean’s grasp and move. Jean was mostly glad that Eren wasn’t even trying because it meant holding onto Eren for a scant few seconds more and wondering why there had been a point in his life when he had not wanted to do this. He loosened his grip eventually. Being alone upstairs presented more possibilities that Jean tried very hard to be cool about.

“Come on, let’s actually go upstairs now.”

“You make it sound so easy but the whole three flights of stairs thing is definitely a turn-off.”

“Right,” Jean scoffed, mostly because he didn’t want Eren to think he was actually worried about somehow repelling him. Eren said nothing either way to appease the pang in Jean’s chest and he wondered whether it was still okay to pretend it was impossible for Eren to change his mind.

Someone else did say something – a uselessly muffled sound that was unintelligible.

“Did you hear that?” Jean asked, his foot on the first step.

“No? What was I supposed-“

“What?” Jean yelled over his shoulder. He definitely heard Annie yell back, ‘Get me some Hula Hoops!’ Jean absolutely would do that but first he prodded at Eren’s back and tried not to grin too much at the exaggerated squirm. “Go upstairs, I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go on,” Jean said. Eren went up the stairs slowly. Yeah. He was absolutely idiotic for Eren. When Eren was out of sight Jean sprinted to the kitchen and searched for the Hula Hoops. It involved a lot of cupboard slamming but he finally found the barbeque flavour packet he had stashed away at the start of the week and he took them to the living room to drop them off.

Annie and Mikasa wore matching smirks when Jean tossed the Hula Hoops at Annie.

“Where’s Eren?” Mikasa asked, thumbing at the colourful flashcards she was holding.

“Upstairs. We’re… erm… we’re going to do some guy stuff. So we are in my room and we shouldn’t be disturbed.” Jean cleared his throat and rubbed at the tickle at the back of his neck. “You’re doing girl stuff down here, right, so we won’t disturb you. So. See you guys in a bit.”

“I’m not interested,” Jean heard Annie say as he sped from the room. “If I indicate any interest it will probably ruin my revision.”

Jean had no idea what that was supposed to mean but it could just have been a continuation of whatever their conversation had been before. Before Jean had to get side-tracked from spending a few extra seconds with Eren.

He slammed the door shut when he hopped into his bedroom and he gave Eren a very natural and cool expression. Eren returned it with a very small smile that was caged behind the teeth biting down on his lower lip as though that was doing much to restrain it.

When Jean was in year four he learnt about the Ancient Egyptians. He remembered being so curious about Nefertiti and how she was supposed to have been so exquisitely beautiful that her face was only matched by her power. The next term he learnt about the Ancient Greeks and Helen of Troy, the face to launch a thousand ships. He was nine years old when some of the more precocious kids in his year started to get boyfriends and girlfriends and Jean wondered what was so attractive about his classmates to make them pair up that way, whether any of the children around him had beautiful faces like the people they learnt about in their lessons.

Eren’s face was more beautiful than the faces of his classmates – that much was hardly a surprise – and Jean could go off on more than a thousand quests just to know that he was the one that could make Eren’s face draw brighter in joy. Better still, Eren was more beautiful and more clever and more handsome and more charming than any of the fairy story heroes that had been knocked out of Jean’s head by the possibilities of people who really were so superlative in their nature.

It was cool to have Eren sitting on his bed, so freely happy. Even more so since Jean had been able to spit out words that had been sticking to the roof of his mouth for too long.

“Hey,” Jean said as he crawled onto his bed opposite Eren. “So, we’re here. Alone.”

“Yeah.”

“So we could do something… _alone_.”

“We could,” Eren agreed, his hands absently circling his knees.

“Do you have any ideas?” Jean had a few ideas but he thought it better for Eren to say something, to decide for them. It was only after a long moment of hesitation that Eren attempted to spit out whatever came to his mind.

“I suppose that it might be cool to... like, sex,” Eren shrugged his ineloquence away. He looked away, stains of pink on his cheeks but his brows furrowed as though he had to concentrate to even care about the response.

Jean was thankful for the moment of Eren being just as uncool as Jean’s usual behaviour.

“Yeah, absolutely.”

It didn’t quite matter that Jean had no idea what he would actually be able to do. Or how to do stuff. Or what he was supposed to do. It was a little bit weird and Jean thought he needed a minute.

 

“Are you hard right now?”

Jean felt heat flood to his face but that did nothing to extinguish the enthusiasm of the blood that had accumulated some distance south of there. Before Jean had a chance to stutter shyly, Eren lashed an arm in the direction of Jean’s crotch. He barely managed to bat away the offending hand.

“What are you doing?”

“We just said…” Eren paused and squinted at Jean. “Aren’t we going to have sex?”

Well. That had sort of been the intention but Jean had imagined it would involve less lunging and grabbing. He nodded cautiously. “Yes, I think we are?”

“Can I see it?”

Eren’s question might have been the worst thing Jean had ever heard in his entire life. Could Eren see it. Could Eren look at his penis which was definitely erect… because of Eren. It was a bit much. There was an odd tickle in the back of Jean’s throat but his gentle coughing hadn’t been enough. He sort of did want Eren to see it because that would lead to a lot more stuff, but the initial incidence of showing and looking just sounded embarrassing.

Jean coughed harder but he only felt light-headed because of it.

“I’ve seen it before,” Eren said unhelpfully.

Jean already knew that and he planned to let Eren know as much just as soon as he got rid of the dry tickling in the back of his throat.

“You’ve already seen mine too. You can see it again though, if that sounds okay. Erm, like, I suppose we don’t have to do any of that though.”

The dryness managed to unstick in time for Jean to splutter, “We don’t have to?”

Eren nodded, his hands seeming to press a bit harder between his legs. “That’s right. We don’t have to have sex.”

“I’d like to do some though,” Jean mumbled, suddenly needing to cough again.

“You would like to do some sex?” Eren asked a little bit too wryly considering looked about as bad as Jean felt.

Jean nodded anyway.

“Okay, cool. Do you want me to, uh…” With his face aflame, Eren made a very odd gesture that Jean watched with more fascination that understanding. Eren kept going for a few moments longer before he seemed to be too embarrassed to continue. He sent a dark look Jean’s way, though his chagrin was burning more brightly than his irritation before he very eloquently mumbled, “Like, should I suck your dick?”

And Jean very suddenly remembered how that went the first time. All those months ago when Jean could barely remember anything about Eren besides the fact that he was infinitely beautiful. And how Eren very loudly retched and coughed because blowjobs were really not his forte.

“Fuck off,” Eren muttered, looking as though the heat in his face was already burn enough.

“Sorry. I just… You really don’t have to do that. I mean, we probably have time to…”

“Time to what? Why did you stop like that?” Eren sounded like he was very inconvenienced by Jean’s pause but it couldn’t be helped. Jean was able to think properly for the first time in far too long.

There must have been something good that Jean had done to deserve this. Maybe it was retribution for all the times he got bad marks in tests that he actually revised for. Or it could have been a more interpersonal thing. Maybe this was a reward for putting up with secondary school and the very delicate system of being cool – or rather attempting to balance his reputation on the scale of being cool and failing no matter how carefully he tried to construct his cool. He’d never worn the right clothes or the right shoes or owned the right phone, not when it mattered anyway. He doubted Eren had ever tried to have any of the right things, or perhaps he had just given up. Either way, Jean was kind of happy.

He smiled and Eren’s frown deepened and his flush darkened considerably. If Eren started to get light-headed or suffer some medical consequence of embarrassment Jean wouldn’t have a clue what to do but he still couldn’t stop smiling.

Jean shook his head and kneeled closer to Eren. Very slowly he tipped his head towards Eren’s and mumbled, “I really want to kiss you, you know.”

“You’re totally changing the subject right now but go for it.”

So Jean did ‘go for it’. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to do with his hands at this point, because this was going to be more than just kissing. He put his hands on Eren’s shoulders to be safe. It didn’t really matter because it was the mouth touching that was probably the most immediately important thing.

The mouth touching was kind of cool though it always had been with Eren. Jean could totally be happy kissing Eren all the time, only kissing Eren and never doing anything else. That would be totally cool and totally fun.

Eren sighed happily as he broke the kiss and Jean was disappointed that his new purpose in life had been cut short so quickly.

“Okay, come on,” Eren said as though that meant anything semantically.

“Erm, okay,” Jean shrugged because asking for an explanation would definitely eat into their kissing time. Eren chuckled quietly and tugged at Jean’s t-shirt just under his armpits. When Jean realised he was being pulled on top of Eren he didn’t really need an explanation anymore.

It was perfect. They were kissing and neither of them were wearing trousers and it was such a slow lazy thing and Jean was sweating even though he was hardly doing anything.

Eren nudged Jean’s jaw away and whined quietly. “It’s not quite enough.”

“Do you want me to… erm…” Jean shyly made a ‘tossing-off’ sort of gesture and wondered whether this was more or less embarrassing than Eren not quite being able to ask whether he should blow Jean.

“No, you don’t have to. I guess we could just sort of… friction,” Eren mumbled weakly, his hands creeping up to dampen the heat in his face.

“Right,” Jean said as though he knew what to do with that suggestion. He wasn’t sure whether Eren meant to create friction until they both came because all through school he had heard that coming in his pants would be the worst thing ever. And Eren was suggesting that. Which meant that Eren was suggesting the worst thing ever. He cleared his throat and wondered whether it was obvious that he was maintaining a certain level of distance between their hips. “Friction.”

Jean had no idea what he was doing but he supposed rubbing off on Eren’s leg was probably the least cool thing he could do. He hesitated a moment too long because Eren, despite his hands pressed against his eyes, rolled his hips up slowly and Jean swore at the press of Eren’s thigh between this legs.

“Okay,” Said Jean. He didn’t even wince at the pitch of his voice. “So. Friction.”

Jean gingerly pressed down and gasped because he was stupid and inexperienced and – Oh God, this was amazing.

Eren wasn’t kissing Jean so much as breathing loudly and pressing the saliva slickness of his pleasure against Jean’s jaw. Once, Jean was certain that a harder bump of their jaws involved quite a few teeth but there was hardly anything for Jean to complain about when there was a tightness in his stomach and a knot in his heart and Eren, a slash of red beside his lip and a swollen ridge along his jaw, gasping and giggling drunkly.

When he came he had to consciously push out the knowledge of just how sticky and icky his underwear was on top of the hideous sweat he had worked up under his clothes. He couldn’t quite move the way he wanted to, but Eren was managing by himself, fingers threaded through the front of his hair and hips thrusting sharply against Jean’s thigh, the scrape of layers of clothes a bit too much stimulation.

Jean could not help but stare as Eren shivered and whined, the jolt of his hips painful.

Eren stopped, his chest heaving and maybe struggling against the weight of Jean on top of him. Jean just about summoned the energy he needed to drag himself to flop down next to Eren on the bed. He tugged at his T-shirt and wondered how soon he would be able to shower and change.

Maybe he would have a nap first. Succumb to the evenness of his breathing and let his tired eyes close against the fuzziness of his brain.

Or not.

"Oh my god," Eren groaned, his hands glued to his face as they had been the whole time, but Jean could just about make out the lop-sided mirth spilling from Eren's mouth.  His groan dissolved into tiny, airy giggles and Jean felt bubbles of air within himself rising in his chest and bursting near the surface of his skin. His arms felt weak as he propped himself up beside Eren.

“That was kind of cool.”

“Yeah.” Eren dropped his hands at his sides, letting them bounce lightly on the mattress for a moment. He glanced at Jean and grinned, the initial wideness receding with a shaky laugh and the fluttering purple-green of his eyelids. “I feel really nasty right now, but it was kind of cool.”

“Cool,” Jean said again.

Eren huffed a laugh. “We should do this again some time.”

“Yeah.” Jean’s lips trembled in their futile attempt to hold back the happy gusts that were escaping his lungs. He rolled onto his side and slid his arm over Eren’s belly.

Eren groaned and brought a hand up to trace along Jean’s jaw. And then he squeezed at Jean’s cheeks to make his face squish narrowly in his hand. “That looks much better.”

“’Oor oorwhu,” Jean said even though he had meant to say, ‘You’re awful.’

Eren smiled sweetly. “You’re right. I am still better looking than you. So I think you should get us something to drink.”

“’Hat oonoont ey- ow!”

“Please?”

Eren released Jean’s face and Jean nodded quickly. Eren’s hand was still nearby and Jean decided that moment would be okay to press a peck to Eren’s palm before he fled the bedroom.

He should have known that he couldn’t seek refuge from his embarrassment in the kitchen.

“Ah!” Annie held up her hands defensively and fixed Jean with a dirty look. “Don’t come near me with those sex hands.”

Jean glanced down at his hands and tried very hard not to grin stupidly. Apparently he wasn’t trying hard enough because Annie’s glare had deepened by the time Jean looked up. He couldn’t exactly help it.

“I didn’t quite believe it when NAME made the effort to come and tell me she could hear something weird in the room above hers, but you’re a mess. A disgusting, sticky, sexy mess.”

“Did you just call me sexy?”

“As if,” Annie said flatly even though Jean totally heard her say it. Whether it was an unfortunate accident or not, it totally counted and Jean decided this was a good day.

“Yeah, but-“ Jean tried to quell the trembling of his lips but there wasn’t much he could really do to stop them from drawing into a sloppy grin. “He- We- Basically we had a talk-“

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

“No, shut up. That was the other day. But now we’re kind of actually probably together or something.”

Annie very nearly smiled and Jean was very jealous of her aptitude for pretending not to care.

At the sink Annie filled two glasses with water and passed them over to Jean with a wry smile. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Does Mikasa know?” Jean couldn’t feel what his face looked like but he supposed his spasm of panic must have shown because Annie actually laughed before she added, “Not about the sex, I meant the ‘being together’ thing. I don’t want to accidentally mention it to her if she doesn’t already know.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway. Why would you accidentally mention it?”

“Didn’t you know, Jean? It’s not just me who had been bound to this fate of only talking about things which pertain to your business and not much else. The _whole world_ can only talk about you because nothing else matters in our boring, little, ugly lives.”

“Y’know, Annie… You…” Jean didn’t really know where he was going with that sentence, mostly annoyed that his brain wasn’t ready to make a retort. He made some sort of childish sound and stuck his tongue out before very carefully escaping up the stairs with his two glasses of water.

Today had been kind of cool.

 

 

Eren’s hand was comfortable despite the clammy heat that was an almost reluctant embrace around Jean’s. Eren was always the wrong side of too warm but the furious heat emanating from his face was a bit much. Jean squeezed at Eren’s hand for a second and Eren squeaked. His ruddiness was deepening to a point where puce was swirling to the surface of Eren’s skin and Jean definitely had cause for concern.

“Are you breathing?”

Eren stiffly turned his head and blinked at Jean once before nodding. Jean wasn’t so sure. He could finally admit that this was okay now but already he was ruining this. He didn’t want to kill Eren.

“Are you sure?”

Eren didn’t make any move to reply and Jean was getting more concerned. He really didn’t want to kill Eren. The only thing he could think to do was to jab Eren in the ribs and at least Eren yelled and jumped aside on the bench. Jean reasoned that people couldn’t yell unless they breathed. Eren glared injuredly at Jean and held up an arm in defence. He was still holding Jean’s hand. That was sort of nice even though Jean was sure he wasn’t getting out of this without severe burns to his hand.

“What was that for?”

“I didn’t want you to die.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You weren’t breathing!” Jean could hear the panic rising in his tone and he hated the fact he was getting more stressed about the aftermath than the prospect of _murdering_ Eren by holding his hand.

“I was… shut up.”

“Why are you even being so weird?”

“I’m not being weird,” Eren loud loudly and also very weirdly. He was brazen enough to deny he was being weird but he couldn’t actually stop being weird for a few seconds. A girl walked past, smirking at Jean all the while and it was not until he could see the indecipherable logos of metal bands attached to her backpack that Jean realised he was being weird too. Probably. He shuffled closer across the bench so their arms weren’t stretched out over the distance between them. Eren’s grip became marginally more comfortable.

“It’s a good job that I even like the fact that you’re weird,” Jean grumbled.

“Whatever. You’re the weird one. What’s all this hand-holding business?”

“What? It’s normal!” Jean retorted. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice as he squinted away from the attention he had attracted. “Lots of people hold hands when they’re in our situation.”

“Yeah, but…” Eren sniffed loudly. He still hadn’t quite returned to his normal colour though Jean had doubted his own face was any different. It was hard, having these gooey feelings inside and being chagrined by their toniest manifestation. But they needed to get used to something as basic as hand holding. They were kind of going out with each other. It was sort of a big deal.

Jean knocked his knee into Eren’s. He wasn’t cool about this stuff at all but this innocent touch was within Jean’s repertoire.

Eren stared at their hands. He sniffed again.

“It’s just… a bit much…”

“Holding hands? Really? That’s what gets to you after everything else? That’s stupid.”

“Do you remember what happened the last time you called me stupid?” Eren asked, his voice wavering and his ears glowing brightly.

“I’m not calling you stupid,” Jean sighed. “It’s just… You say all these things that are kind of cute, like you haven’t kissed anybody else, or you haven’t gone out with anyone else, or holding hands is too affectionate for you, but the first time we met you were very enthusiastic about sucking my dick. Just saying. Ow!”

Jean rubbed at his thigh, wondering which part of what he said had earned him the very hard pinch.

“You are literally the worst.”

“I know, I know,” Jean sighed with an extra squeeze to Eren’s hand, the palm maybe a bit too clammy against his own. “It’s just a bit surprising, right. You were well up for _that_ when I just about knew your name, but now we’re… _like this_ and you can’t handle holding hands with me.”

“It’s what it represents!”

“What does that even mean?”

Eren shrugged. He tentatively swiped a line across the back of Jean’s hand with his thumb. He sniffed loudly and moved his thumb again, and again, and again. And then he stopped and slapped his hand over his mouth to stop the giggle that had seeped out from between the curve of his lips.

“I really like you,” Jean said softly.

Eren rolled his eyes, a tiny wince at the pain from the fading bruise around his left eye, and dropped his hand from his mouth. “Yeah, I like you too. Obviously.”

“Just think, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t got your just desserts for punching me,” Jean said sagely.

“You know, I had no idea that this was a habit. The whole ruining everything all the time because you are the worst person to exist.”

“I was kind of joking,” Jean said, reaffirming his grip on Eren’s hand because surely embarrassing him into being cute again would surely solve this before it became an issue.

“Yeah and I was joking when I punched you because you’re a dick, and I suppose that drunk guy was joking when he thought I was the guy his girlfriend cheated on him with.”

“It’s not really the same though,” Jean mumbled weakly.

“Well maybe you should stop trying to be funny. I don’t hang out with you all the time because you’re funny,” Eren said, the sternness in his voice crumbling at one of the many smiles he had become useless at stopping. He still attempted to act disaffected when he added, “Because you’re not funny at all.”

“You’re not funny either. When Annie gets here she’ll back me up on this.”

“You can be as confident as you like in that but, honestly she’ll probably execute you for daring to think you’re funny.”

“I don’t know,” Jean said casually. He held Eren’s hand between both of his, stroking the back of his hand gently. “Maybe she’d change her mind if you volunteered to make her some eggs.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Jean only shrugged because no amount of sharp fingers driven between his ribs was going to make him give up the meaning with ease.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm I think the worst thing about this chapter was the fact I couldn't even be consistent and shoehorn in a reference to food or drink to keep up with the chapter names. That aside, thank you so much to everyone who has taken time out to read this. It has been a challenge for me to write a multi-chaptered fic like this and I am so grateful for every kudos and comment and the fact that people have been following this is amazing to me. Oodles of gratitude for those of you who have managed to wade through all thirteen chapters of this half-coherent rambling.


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